American grad student accused of supporting boycott detained in Israel

An American graduate student has spent the last week in detention at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, after the government accused her of backing a Palestinian-led boycott of Israeli products.

In 2017, Israel enacted a law that prohibits any foreigner who "knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel" from entering the country. Last Tuesday, 22-year-old Lara Alqasem of Southwest Ranches, Florida, landed at the airport with a valid student visa to study human rights at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Airport staff believed she was a supporter of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel as a way to protest its policy toward Palestinians, The Associated Press reports. She was ordered deported and is appealing, but an Israeli court has ordered she remain in custody during the process.

Alqasem's grandparents are Palestinian, and she once served as president of the University of Florida's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Her mother, Karen Alqasem, told AP her daughter "may have been critical of Israel's policies in the past but she respects Israeli society and culture. To her, this isn't a contradiction."

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Gilad Erdan, Israel's strategic affairs minister, said Alqasem "served as president of a chapter of one of the most extreme and hate-filled anti-Israel BDS groups in the U.S. Israel will not allow entry to those who work to harm the country, whatever their excuse." Erdan said if she apologizes and renounces the BDS movement, he would reconsider deporting her. So far, this is the longest anyone has been in held in a case related to the boycott, and it's unclear when a court will make its final decision.