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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 4/15/12

Israel Bars Airlines From Flying Protesters-- The Beginning of Something Even Worse?

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The fascists who run Israel have taken a new action that threatens worldwide consequences. The Guardian reports 
Israel   has forced low-cost airline Jet2.com to cancel the tickets of three women from Manchester intending to travel to Bethlehem via Tel Aviv this weekend for a gathering of pro-Palestinian activists.

Jet2.com informed the women by email that the airline would refuse to carry them and no refund would be paid. The move follows pressure on airlines from Israel to ban known activists.

The article reports that Israel is taking this policy with other airlines as well. 
An article in Haaretz reports,
Ahead of Sunday's planned 'fly-in,' Israel's Interior Minister sends airlines list of names of blacklisted activists, threatens punitive steps if companies allow them to board Israel-bound flights.
Blacklisted!!
The Haaretz article reports that ticket purchasers WILL get refunds. But the money is not the big issue. The question is, will this policy spread? The USA has the no fly list of around 10,000, and the terrorist watch list of about 400,000
Israel is attempting to block activists from coming into the country. Over 2000 are expected, but Israel has said that it could reject many more than those al ready listed and sent to the airlines. 
The airlines are capitulating to threats from Israel, as the Haaretz article reports,
Referring to a list of names of known pro-Palestinian activists whom Israel suspects will attempt to enter the country over the weekend, which was included in the letter, Shmueli writes, "In light of the above, you are requested not to board them onto Israel-bound flights.

The letter then goes on to threaten punitive steps if the airlines fail to comply with Israeli demands. "A failure to uphold this directive is liable to lead to leveling of sanctions against the airlines."

My concern is that this branding of activists which Israel has started may take on a life of its own. What if airlines share the list and add to it? What if Israel broadens its labeling to include critics. This is a slippery slope. 

What if the list the airlines gets is used by the US as well to restrict movement in the US as well. This is a meme that is very dangerous. 

Other nations have a way of dealing with this kind of thing. They do to the nation what the nation does to its people. If a US citizen wants to go to Brazil, for example, she must go to the Brazilian consulate and apply for a visa. Once at the consulate there are run-around chores that are not apparent, that jerk the traveller around. Why? Because the US imposes that treatment on Brazilians seeking entry to the US. Just saying. Maybe some nations should do the same to Israel. 

Of course, some will argue that Israel has the right to keep troublemakers out, that blocking protesters from entering the country is a reasonable approach to security.  My problem is that slippery slope, the possibility what starts as a program to keep out pro-Palestinian activists could morph into something bigger, more insidious, which covers any protester, even journalists who cover protests or who write op-eds criticizing Israel, or whatever. As the shadow of the security state looms larger and larger, darkening mankind's future, this action by Israel could accelerate the darkness. 




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Rob Kall Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

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Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
 

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