At yesterday’s daily press briefing at the State Department, there was this exchange between A.P. correspondent Barry Schweid and Department Spokesman Sean McCormack, regarding Condoleeza Rice’s speech Wednesday night to the American Task Force on Palestine:
QUESTION: . . .
She made some reference to travel by Palestinian Americans having difficulty I suppose getting to either Israel or the territories. Can you elaborate on that at all?
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. There have been some cases, more than a handful, where there have been some difficulties of people that previously have been able to freely cross between Israeli areas and Palestinian areas aren’t able to do so.
QUESTION: U.S. citizens?
MR. MCCORMACK: Yes. Well, they may be —
QUESTION: Or whatever.
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, maybe dual citizens. Regardless, they hold U.S. passports as American citizens, so it doesn’t make a difference.
QUESTION: Right.
MR. MCCORMACK: And this was brought to the attention of the Secretary, and it’s something that she’s looking into and she’s going to raise with Israeli officials.
QUESTION: Has she reached any temporary conclusions? Is it some discrimination or is it based on thin suspicions of terrorism? Is it —
MR. MCCORMACK: You know, I think —
QUESTION: Is it generic bigotry? What is it?
MR. MCCORMACK: I’m not going to try to, you know, characterize and broad-brush, Barry. I think that each — obviously, each individual case will be different. But the fact is there’s more than a handful of these cases, and it is something that has got her attention. We’re talking about American citizens here.
So the A.P. State Department correspondent raises the “difficulties” of Palestinians with American passports getting to Israel or the territories and asks whether it’s “discrimination” or “thin suspicions of terrorism” or “general bigotry” by Israel. No fourth category apparently occurred to him. And the answer is the Secretary of State is going to personally handle it.
Twice this week I’ve had to appear at the airport an hour early so I could stand in line at the checkpoint, take off my coat and shoes, empty my pockets, take out my computer, and walk through a screening device — all based on “thin suspicions of terrorism” (I’ve ruled out “discrimination” and “generic bigotry” as a cause). This is because 19 guys who weren’t American citizens (like I am) caused some trouble five years ago.
I think I’ll have the Secretary of State look into this.