<nettime> Israel used Facebook to stop European pro-Palestine activists

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From: Nettime's avid reader 


July 12, 2011 by intelNews 

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |

http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/01-760/


Israeli intelligence services managed to stop dozens of European pro-
Palestine activists from flying to Israel, by gathering open-source
intelligence about them on social media sites, such as Facebook.
According to Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor,
intelligence gathered on Facebook formed the basis of a blacklist
containing over 300 names of European activists, who had signed up on
an open-access Facebook page of a group planning nonviolent actions
in Israel this summer. Israeli intelligence agencies forwarded the
names on the lists to European airline carriers, asking them not to
allow the activists onboard their flights, as they were not going to
be allowed into the country. This action prompted airline carriers to
prevent over 200 activists from boarding scheduled flights to Israel.

Israeli security officers detained over 310 other activists, who
arrived in Israel on several European flights last week. Of those,
almost 70 were denied entry to the country, while more detentions
are expected to take place later this week, according [1] to Israeli
Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad. During the detention
operation, at least two flights into Israel, from Geneva, Switzerland,
and Rome, Italy, were diverted to a secluded area of the Ben Gurion
International Airport, which is located a few miles southeast of
Tel Aviv. Once there, they were boarded by armed Israeli security
officers, who detained several activists onboard the airplanes before
allowing the remaining passengers to disembark. Witnesses also
reported the presence of hundreds of police officers at Ben Gurion
during the detention of the activists. Characteristically, only one of
a 40-strong pro-Palestinian activist contingency onboard an EasyJet
flight from London, UK, was able to enter Israel, while 39 were
detained and sent back to the UK.


[1] AP Story: http://tinyurl.com/3htobbz



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