Renowned Israeli historian Professor Ilan Pappé was detained at the Detroit Airport on May 13 and questioned for two hours by the FBI. He had been invited to speak at a May 15 event on the situation in Gaza sponsored by the Detroit branch of Jewish Voice for Peace. He is professor at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the University’s European Center for Palestine Studies. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which documents the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the 1948 war, known as the Nakba. He was also a collaborator with late Israeli peace activist Maxim Ghilan, himself a decades-long collaborator and friend of the late Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
Pappé wrote on Facebook:
Did you know that 70 years old professors of history are threatening America’ national security?
I arrived on Monday at Detroit airport and was taken for a two hours investigation by the FBI, and my phone was taken as well.
The two men team were not abusive or rude, I should say, but their questions were really out of the world!
am I a Hamas supporter? do I regard the Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide? what is the solution to the “conflict” (seriously this what they asked!)
who are my Arab and Muslim friends in America...how long do I know them, what kind of relationship I have with them.
He added that the two gumshoes seemed to have a conversation with someone, perhaps Israelis, during the interrogation. After copying everything on his phone, he was allowed to enter the U.S.
