The FBI detained and interrogated Israeli-Jewish historian Ilan Pappe for two hours after arriving at Detroit Airport on Monday, according to a statement he made on Facebook.
The prominent historian said the FBI confiscated his phone and asked him questions “really out of the world,” he said.
They asked him if he was a Hamas supporter, if he regards the Israeli actions in Gaza as a genocide and what is the solution to the “conflict.” They also asked him about his Arab and Muslim friends in the U.S. and his relationship with them.
“They had long phone conversation with someone, the Israelis? and after copying everything on my phone allowed me to enter,” Pappe said.
Expressing pessimism about the current situation for people who defend the Palestinian cause, as in the example of the rector of Glasgow University, who was denied entry into France and Germany for being Palestinian, Pappe said many have had similar experiences.
“The good news is – actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation in reaction to Israel's becoming very soon a pariah state with all the implications of such a status,” he said.
The Biden administration has come under fire for its unconditional support to Israel and complicity in Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip, where over 35,000 Palestinians have so far been killed, mostly women and children, amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis as Tel Aviv continues to block aid supplies into the blockaded enclave.
Since Oct. 7, the Biden administration has twice cited emergency needs to avoid the regular 30-day review by Congress of military transfers and has sent a regular flow of weapons unknown to the public as they fall below the threshold for congressional notification.
A week after threatening to withhold some arms over Rafah, the Biden administration informed Congress on Tuesday of a $1 billion weapons package for Israel.
