Lara Alqasem was denied entry to study at Hebrew University of Jerusalem due to alleged support for pro-Palestinian movement
A US student refused entry to Israel over alleged support of a pro-Palestinian boycott movement has chosen to stay and fight the ban in court, an Israel official said on Tuesday.
Immigration authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad told AFP late on Tuesday that Lara Alqasem was being held at an immigration facility but was not under arrest.
“She can fly back to the United States whenever she likes,” Haddad said. “She decided to appeal and is being held in the facility for those refused entry,” the spokeswoman said. “She is not under arrest, she is refused entry.”
Haddad said the appeal would be heard in the Tel Aviv district court but gave no date for the hearing.
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She added that judge Kobi Vardi issued a ruling on Tuesday saying that Alqasem was not obliged to remain in the airport holding facility and was free to return home and have the Tel Aviv hearing held in her absence.
In March 2017, Israel’s parliament passed a law banning the entry of supporters of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, inspired by measures against South Africa before the fall of apartheid.
Alqasem, reportedly of Palestinian descent, was stopped at Israel’s main international Ben Gurion airport on Tuesday last week and denied entry under that act.
The Jerusalem Post has reported that during her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida she was president of a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which often leads boycott campaigns against Israel.
It quoted her mother, Karen Alqasem, as saying she had enrolled for a one-year master’s course in human rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for which she had an Israeli visa.
The university has applied to the Tel Aviv court for leave to join her appeal against deportation. “This student wants to come here and study at the Hebrew University for one year,” its president, Professor Asher Cohen, told Israeli army radio on Tuesday.
He argued her treatment was actually strengthening the BDS campaign to boycott goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“There is a difference of opinion with the state on the interpretation of the law. In our opinion in this instance the law does not apply to this student,” he said. “It is for the court to decide.”
Earlier, Israeli internal security minister Gilad Erdan said he would consider allowing Alqasem to take up her university place if she publicly denounced BDS. “If Lara Alqasem states in her own voice, not by all kinds of evasions by lawyers, that she doesn’t think now that support for BDS is something legitimate and she regrets what she has done on this subject, we shall certainly re-evaluate our petition,” he told army radio.
On Thursday, the Israeli  ruled in favor of Lara Alqasem, a 22-year-old  student who appealed an expulsion order, allowing her to remain in the country. She was refused entry upon arrival in Israel on October 2 at  and threatened with deportation; Israeli authorities alleged that Alqasem supported a pro-Palestinian boycott against the state. The student was held in custody as she appealed the order.

On entry at Ben Gurion, Alqasem had a valid student visa to enrol in the . According to reports recounted by ''The New York Times'', the student recently served as president to a small chapter of  (SJP). Israel enacted a law in 2017 granting the state the authority to deport individuals supporting the  movement.

An Israeli lawyer representing the student called the allegation "egregious"; Alqasem studied  in Florida. The Hebrew University asked to join her during the appeal process, in defence of Israel's academic freedom. The director of the university, Barak Medina, stated: "To be clear, we strongly oppose the boycott campaign against Israel, and Israel has to fight it... But to deny entry to every person who has expressed support for a boycott is counterproductive".

Alqasem appealed to the Israeli High Court after being rejected by a lower court. The ruling allows her to pursue further education in the country.