Israel turns back two Swedish MEPs bound for the West Bank

Israel refused entry on Sunday to two Swedish members of the European Parliament who had arrived intending to travel to the occupied West Bank. Jonas Sjostedt and Hanna Gedin, both of Sweden's Left Party, were stopped at Ben Gurion Airport and sent back.

The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed the decision and said the two had "consistently acted against Israel", pointing to their support for international legal proceedings against Israelis. It also said they had spread false accusations, listing among them genocide, deliberate starvation and the deliberate targeting of children and medical workers.

Sjostedt set out what the visit had been for in a post on Facebook. The programme was to have consisted of meetings with humanitarian and human rights organisations, Save the Children among them, and visits to refugee camps, and it included no meeting with the Palestinian Authority. He said the Swedish embassy and the European Union delegation in Israel had both protested against the refusal.

The accusations the ministry described as false are ones that international bodies have themselves made. UN investigators concluded in June that Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian children as part of what they characterised as an ongoing genocide, and the genocide allegation is before the International Court of Justice.

Rawhi Fattouh, president of the Palestinian National Council, called the refusal "an attempt to impose silence by force and turn criticism of the occupation into an accusation".

The decision has a precedent that is often cited. In 2019 Israel barred the US congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering the country after both had criticised its policies towards Palestinians.

What the case turns on is who controls the door. Foreign legislators cannot reach the occupied West Bank except through crossings Israel administers, so a delegation that intends to look at conditions under the occupation needs the permission of the authority whose conduct it has come to examine. Refusing entry does not answer the criticism, but it does determine who gets to see the territory it is about.