The decision to refuse him re-entry into Israel is the latest in a series of such incidents and appears to be part of a coordinated effort between the police and PIBA to bar civil rights activists who support Palestinian civilians in the West Bank from conducting peaceful activities in the territory.<\/p>\n
\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/000_9MZ96C-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tIsraelis and Palestinian activists demonstrate over water supplies in the southern area of the West Bank town of Hebron, on September 17, 2021. (HAZEM BADER \/ AFP)<\/p>\n
The man has never been indicted for, or convicted of, \u201cnationalistic crime activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has appealed PIBA\u2019s refusal to allow him entry to Israel. \u201cMy unexceptional case serves only to index a broader entrenchment of fascistic rule, wherein mechanisms of silence are invoked to obscure ongoing violence,\u201d he said.\u2028\u201cColonial order rests on security from potentiality. I join a broad cohort of those preemptively banished for threatening a social order upheld through violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has authority over the police, said in October last year that the police and PIBA have cooperated<\/a> in having such activists expelled from Israel.<\/p>\n Later that same month, during the olive harvest season, the police stated<\/a> that its operations halting the actions of civil rights activists in the West Bank and \u201cpreventing harm to the image of the State of Israel around the world,\u201d have been conducted \u201cin accordance with the policies\u201d of Ben Gvir.<\/p>\n According to PIBA, the man was added to a list of foreign nationals banned from entry into Israel in September 2025 on the recommendation of the West Bank district police.<\/p>\n His attorney notes that at least one other activist was added to the list at the same time. PIBA has broad discretion over who may enter Israel, with few clear criteria, although it cannot make arbitrary or discriminatory decisions.<\/p>\n The Law for Entry into Israel, amended in 2025, does, however, stipulate that foreign nationals can denied entry into Israel if they publicly call for a boycott of Israel; deny the Holocaust; deny the October 7, 2023 massacres; or publicly support putting Israeli citizens on trial in foreign courts for war crimes.<\/p>\n The man, who is fiercely critical of Israel\u2019s treatment of the Palestinians, first came to Israel as a visiting research fellow at Hebrew University in 2021 on a tourist visa, and went back and forth to the US for several years.<\/p>\n In January 2025, he took up a visiting researcher position at Tel Aviv University\u2019s Department of Sociology and Anthropology on a student visa, and in June 2025 he obtained an A1 temporary residence visa, which are available to those who are eligible to make aliyah to Israel under the right of return, but have not yet decided to become an Israeli citizen.<\/p>\n The scholar moved to live in the South Hebron Hills region of the West Bank in February 2024 to conduct doctoral research on the relationship between Israeli settlers and the state, and lived in several Palestinian villages in the region.<\/p>\n \t During his time in the region, he participated in \u201cprotective presence\u201d activity with Palestinian and Jewish activists, where participants accompany rural Palestinian residents in their agricultural work to document settler violence.<\/p>\n In November 2025, he returned to his native city of Chicago for a visit, but when he came back to Israel on December 2, he was taken aside at Ben Gurion Airport and questioned by a PIBA official about his activities.<\/p>\n The PIBA documentation of the questioning states that he was included on an entry refusal list since he was \u201can anarchist who calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n The document adds that he was put on the entry refusal list on September 11, 2025, on the recommendation of the intelligence unit of the West Bank district police. The police had requested he be put on the list \u201cfor nationalist crime activities,\u201d PIBA said.<\/p>\n PIBA did not show any evidence to the man during his questioning at Ben Gurion Airport of either the accusation that he had called for the destruction of the State of Israel or conducted \u201cnationalist crime activities.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, PIBA refused to provide evidence of such accusations to The Times of Israel, and the man categorically denies the allegations.<\/p>\n PIBA did note an incident in March 2024, when the man was detained by IDF soldiers from a West Bank territorial defense unit, which mostly consists of mobilized residents of the settlements.<\/p>\n He was detained outside the Susyia military base in the South Hebron Hills after he volunteered to pick up an elderly Palestinian man, who had been detained and taken to the base, and subsequently released.<\/p>\n \t The researcher was detained for allegedly filming the base, although he denies he did so. He was taken to the nearby Kiryat Arba police station, where he was not questioned on suspicion of \u201cfilming a military base,\u201d but rather for \u201cdisturbing the public order.\u201d<\/p>\n After being held for 12 hours in the police station, he was released without charge.<\/p>\n His case is the latest in several similar incidents, in which foreign activists supporting Palestinian civil rights, including Jews, have been deported and banned from Israel.<\/p>\n On October 16 last year, 32 foreign, pro-Palestinian activists were deported from Israel after trying to help Palestinian olive growers harvest their crop in the northern West Bank.<\/p>\n The activists were associated with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) organization, which was banned by Israel in 2021 for its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.<\/p>\n In a joint statement together with the IDF, the police said<\/a> that Ben Gvir and acting interior minister Yariv Levin \u201cgave instructions to deport the 32 anarchists.\u201d<\/p>\n The police statement added that \u201cAn expedited deportation process of all the activists from Israel has started, in coordination with the Population and Immigration Authority of the Interior Ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n In comments attributed to Ben Gvir in the statement, the minister praised both the West Bank district police for having arrested the activists and \u201cour partners in the Population [and Immigration] Authority for their decisive and professional work that led to the expulsion of dozens of anarchist activists who identified with a terror organization.\u201d<\/p>\n On October 29, 11 activists volunteering to help harvest olives for Palestinian olive growers were detained in the same region of the West Bank, and two of them, both Jewish American women, were also deported by PIBA.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/F230410SD26-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tNational Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir takes part in a march to the Evyatar outpost, near the West Bank city of Nablus, during the Passover holiday, on April 10, 2023. (Sraya Diamant\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-10-31-at-07.54.51-640x400.jpeg\")
\n\t\tActivists with Rabbis for Human Rights help Palestinian olive growers harvest their olives in the West Bank, October 2025. (Courtesy Rabbis for Human Rights)<\/p>\n