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The cases - in Ohio, Missouri, Texas and California - originated several weeks after the attacks when tipsters called the Federal Bureau of Investigation and INS to report their suspicions about Middle Eastern-looking people who were living together in apartments, working in groups at shopping malls and speaking an Arabic-like language.
In late October and early November, dozens of Israelis working at kiosks in shopping malls and selling toys and trinkets were arrested for working without authorization while in the United States on tourist visas.
"We're conducting the largest investigation in U.S. history, and we're trying to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks," said Dan Nelson, spokesman for the Justice Department. "Every time somebody's picked up on an immigration law violation, there's going to be greater scrutiny. We're leaving no stone unturned."
Though INS officials have testified in court hearings that the Israeli Jews are "of special interest to the government," no evidence indicates that they are tied to terrorist organizations. An anonymous source at the INS told the Post "special interest" means the case in question is "related to the investigation of September 11th." The term has been used in many cases involving Muslim Arab men who have been detained around the country since the attacks.
In fact, Justice Department immigration judge Elizabeth Hacker rejected the officials' arguments in Cleveland, setting bond for eleven detainees at $10,000.
"Although the [INS] alleges that these cases are ‘special,' it has failed to present any credible evidence of the basis for this finding," Hacker wrote in her decision. "Indeed, the service has failed to submit any evidence of terrorist activity or of a threat to the national security."
David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration attorney representing the eleven Israelis, said that ordinarily the INS would not bother with a case of unauthorized employment by a foreign tourist-visa holder.
"If they're still holding people who clearly have no tie-in to September 11th, what does that say about the quality of the overall investigation?" Leopold commented. "The government is using immigration statutes to pull people into this wide web, and once it does, it's difficult to get out."
Israeli officials, however, are trying to downplay the situation, claiming the detentions are unrelated to the U.S. terror investigation.
"Israelis visiting the U.S. have to respect the laws of the host country," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington. "If [the detainees] are in violation of their visas, there are consequences to be paid, especially after September 11th."
In another developing case, reported by the Jerusalem Post Nov. 23 and by Drudge Report Nov. 24, five young Israeli Jews were recently released from two months in U.S. jails. They told the Jerusalem Post that they "were treated like terrorists" even after it became clear they were not involved in the terrorist attacks.
The five, who worked for a New Jersey moving company, said that they were arrested in a security sweep after neighbors reported them to the authorities when they heard them speaking Hebrew and thought it was Arabic. It was reported that they were picked up after they photographed themselves smiling against the backdrop of the burning wreckage of the World Trade Center towers.
During the first month following the attack, they were placed in solitary confinement before anyone interrogated them, the five told reporters. The Israelis claim that they were deprived of food and basic sleeping and toilet conditions and deliberately kept with Arab and Muslim prisoners who beat them badly.
Here at Northwestern, NOWAR (Northwestern Opposing War and Racism) has been protesting discrimination and racism post-September 11th. "1-2-3-4, we don't want your racist war" was one of the leading chants at a recent NOWAR rally at the Library Plaza.
"The racial profiling that has been going on is becoming part of the war on terrorism," said School of Speech sophomore Danielle Ongart, a NOWAR leader. "The war on terrorism could be considered a racist war."
The NOWAR literature handed out at the rally focused on the discrimination and violence committed against Arab- and Muslim-Americans. While rhetoric like "the racist attacks on Arab-Americans and Muslims" and "attacks on innocent Arabs and Muslims" looms about the NOWAR handout, the organization has ignored the plight of Jewish Israelis currently detained in America. The same literature piece included several anti-Israeli remarks.
"Israeli retaliation against Palestinian suicide bombers has made the conflict [in Israel] endemic," read NOWAR's informational paper. "Israel is one of the few nations in the world which admits to using torture as an accepted interrogation technique. Assassination of suspected terrorists - forget due process - is government policy."
"We are discussing other issues we want to incorporate into our group, and we started to bring up other things we had heard about other groups," Ongart explained. "We're not ignoring [the plight of Israeli Jews] at all, it just hasn't come into the consciousness of the group yet."
Students for Israel co-President Josh Furman expressed his concern about the situation. "Racial profiling is unacceptable in any form, whether the victim be Muslim, African-American or Jewish," he said. "I hope that Americans will react to this story in the same manner that they have reacted to incidents of racial profiling against Arab-Americans and African-Americans."
http://www.chron.org/tools/viewart.php?artid=243ISRAELI ART STUDENTS + MOVERS - SEPTEMBER 11
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