British rapper raps Israeli security

March 5, 2009 - 10:06 AM by David · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Politics, Pop Culture, Travel, War, coexistence

Lowkey - unwelcome in Israel?

Any visitor to Israel who’s entered or left the country via Ben-Gurion airport can tell you stories about the security there. Especially, if you don’t fall into the ‘Jewish visitor’ category.

For better or worse, we invented profiling – if you stray outside of their accepted categories of low risk visitor – for instance if you’re black, or Muslim – or if you’re a radical British rapper with ‘Long Live Palestine’ splashed across your Myspace page – you better be prepared for some grilling and some uncomfortable moments.

Justified? Well, yeah. The ultimate goal is to prevent people dying in a terror attack. Could we do it in a friendlier, gentler way that doesn’t create long-standing bitter feelings? Well, yeah.

But it’s still hard to swallow the sour grapes spewed by minor talent British rapper Lowkey, of the hip-hop/indie left-wing collective Mongrel who claimeed he was recently detained at the airport for nine hours.

According to the British New Musical Express, the rapper had been travelling to Tel Aviv to take part in a series of charity shows in the country, and in the Palestinian Authority to raise funds to help rebuild the Gaza Strip.

“As soon as I stepped off the plane with my AA guide to Israel tucked under my arm, I was pulled away to the side and interrogated as to why I was in Israel, by a man who wore no uniform identifying himself as any type of security but was clearly heavily armed,” Lowkey explained.

“After this I carried on through to passport control. After giving over my British passport it was confiscated. I was then detained for nine hours. During this time I was interrogated about many aspects of my life, what the purpose of my trip was, where my parents are from and where I planned to go in Israel.

“Eventually I was told my story was a lie and was subjected to a bout of the Israeli polices paranoid mind games. I was eventually released, knowing that no matter how frustrating what I just went through was, I knew that it was not even a miniscule fraction of the degradation Palestinian people are subjected to on a daily basis.”

Well, thanks for the soap box, Lowkey. I haven’t received an answer yet from the airport authority regarding the validity of the events as Lowkey related them. But as one commenter to the NME story responded:

Maybe it had something to do with the fact you have – LONG LIVE PALESTINE TOUR IN PALESTINE!!!!. across your MYSPACE page you d***… of course they are gonna watch your arse when you step foot off the plane…

It’s unclear whether Lowkey actually performed in Israel or raised any money to rebuild Gaza. But I would bet money that he didn’t visit Sderot or Ashkelon during his stay here.

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