Tel Aviv court orders expulsion of American ISM activist
By Relly Sa'ar, Haaretz Correspondent

Tel Aviv District Court Judge Oded Modrik on Thursday ruled to expel New Yorker Anne Robinson-Petter, the 44-year-old graphic and video artist who has been under arrest by the Immigration Police for the past two weeks.

The expulsion request was made Israel's security services, on the grounds that the member of the International Solidarity Movement posed a security threat.

The Tel Aviv court upheld the decision denying her entry into Israel and ordered her to leave the country within 24 hours, said her lawyer, Yael Berda. Robinson-Petter has been held at Ben-Gurion International Airport in the holding cells reserved for people refused entry to the country. She arrived two weeks ago for a 14-day visit with the intention of filming a video about a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor traveling the country and the territories, and to take part in demonstrations against the separation fence.

According to Shamai Leibowitz, Robinson-Petter's second lawyer, Petter was questioned for some 10 hours by security agents at the airport and refused to hand over information about other members of the Israeli-Palestinian organization.
She was denied entry to Israel on two grounds, says the report on her being questioned at the airport: "Her guaranteed participation in hostile sabotage activity," and belonging to "a leftist organization."

Another ISM activist, Rachel Corrie, 23, of Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in a Gaza refugee camp while trying to stop soldiers from demolishing a house in March, 2003. The death was ruled accidental.

Petter, who does work for the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Simon & Schuster, the publishing house, refused to comply with the authorities' refusal to allow her into the country, arguing that she had spent two weeks in Israel two years ago without any conditions. When she refused to leave, she was placed under arrest. After her lawyers appealed to the District Court on the day after her arrival, a temporary injunction was issued preventing the authorities from deporting her. But the court refused to issue a release order letting her out of the holding cells even under constraints. The security services claimed at the closed door hearings two weeks ago that they have "secret information" about the woman. At a court hearing Tuesday, say her lawyers, the prosecutors refused to provide a statement backing up the claims of the security services, which had originally argued at her arrest that her presence in the country endangers state security.
"The prosecutors wanted the judge to hold a closed door hearing with the Shin Bet representative, without a defense attorney present," said Leibowitz.
"That would be a clear violation of the legal process, since if the state is accusing my client of such grave charges its duty is to present a written statement so we can respond to it."

While Robertson-Peter is not being allowed contact with anyone other than her lawyer, she answered through him why she insisted on staying in Israel despite the considerable discomfort it has involved for her.
"My client," said Leibowitz, "refuses to allow the state to impugn her with the stigma of being a terrorist who is involved in hostile terrorist activity, and she is disgusted by the way her activities on behalf of human rights are regarded as a so-called danger to the security of the state. She is fighting to prove that there is nothing wrong with her activities.