WASHINGTON - An Ohio professor who spent 22 days in an Israeli jail on suspicion of spying for Iran and Hezbollah asked colleagues Friday to help him get an apology from Israel.
Ghazi Falah, a geography professor at the University of Akron, sent an e-mail to academic colleagues, many of whom he credits with pressuring Israel to release him. Falah asked them to boycott Israeli universities or academic conferences until an apology is issued.
“Don’t be afraid of any accusation of anti-Semitism,” he wrote in the e-mail. “Intelligent Israelis and Jews everywhere know criticism of Israeli government abuses is not anti-Semitic. Indeed, it is quite the opposite, in solidarity with a longstanding passion for truth and justice in Judaism.”
Falah is an Arab with dual Israeli and Canadian citizenship. He was arrested July 8 while taking photographs on a beach in northern Israel.
A few days later fighting broke out between Israel and Iran-sponsored Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, and the Israeli government later said Falah was suspected of spying. He was released July 30 without being charged with a crime.
Israel’s Ministry of Justice sent a letter Sept. 6 to several academics who had complained about Falah’s detention. The letter said the investigation “was conducted according to law, and was subject to judicial review.”
Peter Klosterman, a molecular biology researcher who used to work at the University of California at Berkeley, sent a letter to the Israeli Ministry of Justice saying that he supports Falah’s request for an apology and asking Israel to admit that his detention was a mistake.
“Trustworthy people do get detained for doing nothing wrong other than speaking out and taking a stand,” he said Friday in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.
