Security at Ben Gurion Airport
Security at Ben Gurion AirportIsrael news photo: Yoni Kempinski

The International Solidarity Movement and other left-wing groups are planning the massive fly-in this week to stir up unrest in Judea and Samaria, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

The government and police forces have said they will not tolerate any disturbances and have drawn up plans to deploy hundreds of security forces in and around the airport. Sky marshals also will be in planes, most of them from Europe, which will start arriving Thursday evening.

The arrival of several hundred activists during the peak summer tourist season could wreak havoc at the airport, and one plan is that passengers on European flights disembark at the old Terminal One instead of the international Terminal 3.

The activists plan to declare themselves “tourists” wanting to visit the Jordan Valley, Bethlehem, Ramallah and other Arab cities in Judea and Samaria. They also are preparing to display propaganda at the airport on their arrival, the Terrorist Information Center reported.

The Center labeled the ISM “an extreme leftist network based in the United States specializing in sending activists to friction points” in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

The "Bienvenue Palestine" or "Fly-in Action" (or Ahalan wasahalan fi Filastin in Arabic, "Welcome to Palestine") is to include events next week “to show solidarity with the Palestinians and defame Israel,” the Center added. “The plan may escalate into a protest with a demand for the so-called ‘right of return,’ and a protest against Israel's preventing foreign nationals from freely entering the ‘occupied Palestinian territories.’

Government officials have said that police will handle the passengers without violence, noting that they are unarmed. The Center said, “The organizers intend to use passive resistance if an attempt is made to put them on planes to return them to their countries of origin, but past experience has shown that ‘passive resistance’ can deteriorate into violence.

“The timing of the propaganda display and connected events is, according to the organizers, related to the decision of the International Court in The Hague according to which the security fence (the so-called ‘wall’ and ‘apartheid wall’ by the organizers) is illegal. However, in reality, the display and various events are part of the campaign to delegitimize Israel, and are another aspect of the anti-Israeli defamation propaganda campaign…and the current flotilla.”

The activists also plan protests in the Negev, Galilee and Jerusalem.