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November 30, 2001/Kislev 15, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 12
Israelis remain detained in anti-terror sweep
MICHAEL J. JORDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The revelation that dozens of Israelis have been thrown in jail since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has some American Jewish leaders wondering if this is a new government attempt at "even-handedness."
Most of the 50 or so Israelis reportedly jailed in Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Houston and San Diego are men in their 20s.
No one refutes the likelihood that they violated visa regulations, but some have been in jail for over a month for what normally would be considered petty infractions.
That leaves Jewish activists wondering if the U.S. Department of Justice is straining to show "even-handedness" in its investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks to appease Arabs concerned that Washington is targeting only Arab and Muslim suspects.
Israeli officials say they do not believe Israelis have been singled out, and are treating the incarcerations as a consular issue rather than a political one.
"Israelis who break the law must understand there will be consequences for their actions," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington. "America is justifiably looking much more closely at foreign visitors, and Israelis who are here illegally or doing something in contrast to their visa specifications should not consider themselves immune just because of the friendly relations between the two countries."
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft refuses to disclose the names of detainees, but Israelis are believed to be the largest single national group arrested in a nationwide crackdown that has netted at least 554 on visa violations - and 55 charged with a direct link to the attacks - since Sept. 11. Some believed that as many as 150 Israelis had been arrested.
The Zionist Organization of America this week said it was crafting a letter to the Justice Department complaining that the large-scale arrests of Israelis "play into the hands of anti-Semites." It claims the arrests are in response to the canard that Israel orchestrated the suicide attacks and that 4,000 Jews were warned not to come to their jobs at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
"I would hope that those who make allegations about something as serious as a violation of an individual's civil rights would not do so lightly or without specificity or without facts. This does a disservice to our entire justice system," Ashcroft said.
There actually have been two separate situations involving Israelis.
The first involved five Israeli men spotted clowning around Sept. 11 along the New Jersey riverfront, taking photographs against a backdrop of the burning World Trade Centers.
The men worked for a moving company and happened to have box cutters - one of the weapons used on the hijacked flights - in their truck.
The men were imprisoned in Brooklyn, N.Y., where one reportedly failed a polygraph test when discussing his Israeli army service.
The men were never charged with a crime but complained that they were treated like criminals and even intentionally placed with Arab inmates, who beat them up. After two months in jail, the five were quietly deported to Israel last week.
The Anti-Defamation League took the incident seriously, but not the suggestion that Israelis are being unfairly singled out.
"There's a war, a change of scenery, and the fact that Semitic-looking people are caught in the web of ethnic profiling is an unfortunate consequence of the new reality," the national director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, said. "My only concern is that once Israelis are arrested and detained, there needs to be sensitivity not to put them together with Arabs or Muslims, because their safety may be in danger."
Then there are the dozens of Israelis arrested nationwide, some of whom apparently aroused suspicion because they worked for a company selling trinkets that may have hired other young men from the Middle East.
Regev, however, sought to put the events in perspective.
"Israelis, better than most, can understand the problems involved with dealing with terrorism, and I think Israelis can appreciate the enormous pressure American authorities were under in the weeks following Sept. 11," he said.
The secrecy surrounding the detainees' identities and the refusal to disclose the charges, if any, are fanning suspicion about the arrests.
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