Eighteen Hours in Ben Gurion: When Nations Control the Narrative

 

The Mission That Never Was

In 2002, I formed a grassroots coalition with an audacious goal: travel to the West Bank and Gaza, then occupied by Israeli forces during the violence of the Second Intifada, and document what was happening to ordinary Palestinians caught in the crossfire. As an independent journalist and professional photographer, I believed the world needed to see the human cost of the conflict beyond the headlines about suicide bombings and military operations.

Together with two other activists, I co-founded Mission for Palestine under the umbrella of Richmond's chapter of Food Not Bombs. We spent months organizing, fundraising, garnering support from local Islamic institutions, regional peace organizations, and national anti-war groups. We coordinated with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which was leading a summer campaign to assist Palestinians during the occupation.

The planned activities were deliberately non-violent: walking children to school safely through military checkpoints, providing escorts for civilians attempting to obtain food and medical supplies, serving as voluntary human shields against military aggression, and—my primary role—documenting the daily lives of those affected by the occupation.

We raised the money. We made the connections. We boarded the plane with cameras, notebooks, and the conviction that bearing witness mattered.

We never made it past the airport.

The Trap Was Set

What we didn't know—what we couldn't have known—was that we'd been betrayed before we ever left American soil.

One member of our three-person group had a brother in the U.S. Secret Service. When she informed her family of her plans to travel to Palestine with ISM, her brother took action. Whether out of genuine concern for her safety or alignment with government security interests, he tipped off the American embassy. The embassy, in turn, alerted the Israeli government.

By the time we landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Shin Bet and Mossad—Israel's internal security service and foreign intelligence agency—were waiting. The trap was set, and we walked right into it.

Eighteen Hours in Custody

Ben Gurion Airport was as far as our mission got. The moment we presented our passports, we were flagged. Before we could exit the terminal to meet ISM representatives in Jerusalem, Israeli military intelligence and law enforcement pulled us aside for questioning.

What followed was eighteen hours of interrogation by agents who already knew everything about us—our affiliations, our plans, our contacts. The questions were pointed, repetitive, designed to find inconsistencies or admissions. Who were we meeting? What organizations were we affiliated with? What were our real intentions?

The interrogators were professional, persistent, and ultimately unmoved by our insistence that we were there as journalists and humanitarian volunteers. They had done their homework. They knew about ISM. They knew about our fundraising. They knew we were coming long before we arrived.

After eighteen hours, we were not released into Israel. We were jailed briefly, then led in handcuffs through the airport to a flight back to London. Deported before ever setting foot in the country we'd come to document. I was placed on a no-fly list, barred from entering Israel indefinitely.

To this date—over twenty years later—I have no idea if I'm still on that list. I've never tried to return. The experience left me with more questions than answers, a story I never got to tell, and the bitter knowledge that family loyalty and government security apparatus had converged to stop us before we could bear witness.

Controlling the Narrative

At the time, Israel was systematically barring entry to journalists, aid workers, volunteers, and even clergy who planned to work in the Palestinian territories. The official reason was always "security." And certainly, security concerns during the Second Intifada were real—suicide bombings were killing Israeli civilians, and the country was in a state of heightened alert.

But the blanket exclusions suggested something else: an attempt to control the narrative of what was happening in the Palestinian territories. By preventing independent observers, journalists, and human rights workers from entering, Israel could shape the story the world received. Official military briefings replaced eyewitness accounts. Government spokespeople became the primary source of information about events in occupied territories.

The coordination between U.S. intelligence services and Israeli security agencies to identify and intercept activists before they could arrive illustrated just how seriously both governments took the threat of independent documentation. This wasn't just about security screening at airports. This was active intelligence sharing, surveillance of American citizens planning legal travel, and preemptive action to prevent witnessing.

This wasn't just frustrating for those of us turned away. It was dangerous for the truth. When governments—any government—can seal off conflict zones from independent observation, atrocities become easier to commit and harder to prove. Civilians suffer in darkness, their stories untold, their pain unwitnessed.

The Death of Rachel Corrie

My deportation took on darker significance months later when Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American activist with ISM, was killed in Gaza. On March 16, 2003, Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer while attempting to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. She was participating in the same "Summer of Freedom" campaign that my group had attempted to join.

The circumstances of her death remain disputed. Witnesses say she was clearly visible in a bright orange jacket, standing in front of the bulldozer, which ran over her anyway. The IDF maintains it was a tragic accident, that the operator couldn't see her. An Israeli investigation cleared the soldier of wrongdoing.

What cannot be disputed is that Rachel Corrie died doing exactly what we had planned to do: placing herself physically between Palestinian civilians and Israeli military operations. Her death illustrated both the danger of the work and the reason Israel wanted to keep international observers out. Dead activists make international headlines. Her death brought scrutiny Israel would have preferred to avoid.

I think often about the fact that we were stopped and she wasn't. What made the difference? Luck? Timing? The quality of intelligence received? Perhaps our betrayal saved our lives. Perhaps we would have been more careful, more aware of the dangers. There's no way to know.

The Hamas Connection

Years later, information emerged that ISM had ties to Hamas, which Israel, the United States, and the European Union designate as a terrorist organization. This revelation complicated the narrative considerably. Were we naive idealists being used by a militant organization? Was ISM's humanitarian work a cover for something else? Had the Secret Service agent been right to tip off the authorities?

The reality, as usual, is more complex than simple condemnation allows. Hamas was democratically elected by Palestinians in 2006 to represent their government. One can simultaneously acknowledge that democratic election and recognize Hamas's violent tactics and ideology. ISM's connection to Hamas doesn't necessarily negate the humanitarian work they coordinated—walking children to school, documenting home demolitions, providing international presence to deter violence.

But it does raise questions about who we were really serving and what our presence might have enabled. Looking back, I can't claim perfect clarity about the righteousness of our mission or the purity of the organizations we worked with.

The Watchdog and the Sledgehammer

Israel's fierce determination to protect its citizens—the "never forget" and "never again" ethos born from the Holocaust—can be viewed with admiration. A nation that takes its security seriously, that refuses to be passive in the face of threats, that protects its people with unwavering resolve.

But there's a point where justified vigilance becomes disproportionate force. Where security measures become collective punishment. Where the kill-or-be-killed mentality produces civilian casualties that mirror the very atrocities the nation was founded to prevent.

The extent to which Israel has embraced this posture—the treatment of Palestinian civilian populations, the home demolitions, the checkpoint restrictions that prevent access to hospitals and schools, the settlements that make peace increasingly impossible—is deeply concerning. A nation built on the memory of persecution has itself become an oppressor to another people.

This doesn't excuse Palestinian violence. It doesn't ignore the real security threats Israel faces. It doesn't simplify a conflict with centuries of historical, religious, and political complexity. But it acknowledges an uncomfortable truth: victim and victimizer are not permanent categories. The oppressed can become oppressors. Trauma can perpetuate trauma.

The Universal Truth

In light of the current political landscape—the recent violence, the ongoing occupation, the entrenched positions on both sides—my experience from over twenty years ago illustrates something fundamental: transparency matters. Access matters. Independent observation matters.

When nations seal off conflict zones, when they deport journalists and activists, when they control who can witness and who can tell the story, civilians pay the price in blood and silence. The truth becomes whatever the most powerful party says it is.

And when intelligence agencies across national borders coordinate to identify and intercept those who would bear witness, when family members report siblings to security services, when the machinery of state surveillance ensures that independent observers never reach conflict zones—the narrative control becomes nearly absolute.

The truth I wanted to document two decades ago remains the truth today: no matter how just a war may seem to those waging it, the innocent are always the victims. Palestinian children who can't get to school safely. Israeli families shattered by suicide bombings. Mothers on both sides burying their children. Homes demolished. Lives destroyed.

I never got to tell the stories I traveled there to document. But perhaps the story of being prevented from telling those stories is itself worth telling—a reminder that in every conflict, someone is working very hard to control what the world sees, hears, and believes. And when that happens, we should ask ourselves: What are they hiding? Who suffers in the silence? And what would we see if we could just get past the airport?