Hamas-linked CAIR Fashions a Victimhood Case Out of a Longstanding Bureaucratic Procedure

NBC Connecticut and ABC8 recently ran sympathetic segments about a mother and her 14‑year‑old son from Meriden who were prevented from leaving Israel. Viewers were told the family’s U.S. passports were “rejected because they were Palestinian.” What the coverage omitted is that this is not arbitrary discrimination but long‑standing Israeli policy rooted in the Oslo Accords. Palestinians listed in the Palestinian Authority population registry must travel on PA documents and leave through Jordan’s Allenby/King Hussein Bridge — not via Ben Gurion Airport on foreign passports.

This policy, whether one likes it or not, has been in place for decades. It applies across the board to registered Palestinian residents, including those who later acquire dual citizenship. The framework comes from Oslo II, Annex III, Article 28, which placed responsibility for the Palestinian population registry and issuance of ID and travel documents in the hands of the PA, while Israel retained authority over borders. The text itself states

“The Palestinian side shall maintain and administer a population registry and issue certificates and documents of all types, in accordance with and subject to the provisions of this Agreement,” subject to Israel’s right of review.

In other words, Palestinians listed in the registry are bound to PA-issued papers, and Israel, retaining border authority, enforces this requirement.

In practice, this prevents someone from bypassing security screening by switching to a U.S. passport at Ben Gurion Airport. To ignore that context is to mislead viewers.

And so questions of credibility are raised: is it really plausible that the family was unaware of these well‑established rules? Israeli authorities typically explain the requirement when Palestinians attempt to depart through Ben Gurion. Why didn’t the boy tell us about the Israeli policy during his “exclusive” TV interview? How could they not have anticipated this outcome? If they truly did not know, it calls into question whether such inept travelers should be journeying alone, or whether this ignorance itself was staged to manufacture a grievance.

And this is hardly the first time such cases have reached the press. In 2001, more than a hundred Palestinian‑Americans were blocked from leaving through Ben Gurion despite holding U.S. passports — a case that drew State Department complaints.  As late as 2015, journalist George Khoury recounted being told at the airport that he “belongs with Palestinians” and should use Allenby Bridge instead. Even today, the U.S. Embassy makes clear that anyone with a PA ID must apply through ETA‑IL and cannot simply present a U.S. passport at Ben Gurion. These examples show the rule is long‑standing, widely enforced, and well‑publicized — which makes the Meriden family’s supposed surprise even more implausible.

Instead of reporting this relevant information, the coverage amplified unsubstantiated claims:

• Repeated strip searches — with no verification.
• Inability to travel to Jordan — unexplained, though it is the standard route for Judea and Samaria (West Bank) residents.
• The gratuitous “rogue settler” warning — injected by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the father despite the fact that it is Palestinians, not Jewish settlers, who routinely target unarmed women and children in terror attacks.
• The mother’s name is “Intifada” — which raises further questions. Who names themselves after a violent uprising and then becomes the centerpiece of a TV rights‑abuse campaign?
• Farhan Memon of CAIR‑CT publicly asked why U.S. citizens cannot leave via Ben Gurion Airport, even though the answer lies in long‑standing Oslo‑era travel policies. This is a strong indication of deliberate misinformation, especially since the reports framed CAIR as merely “trying to help” — without clarifying what they are doing, or who exactly they are helping.

This has the markings of a provocation: a bureaucratic policy turned into a civil‑rights melodrama, with CAIR as the ever‑present “authority,” U.S. politicians enlisted for moral outrage, and Israel’s voice absent. The father himself claimed that “all it takes is one rogue settler,” a sound bite repeated without scrutiny. That rhetoric has had an effect: from former Congressman Matt Gaetz to former Governor and current U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal warning of Israeli “entrapment,” echoing  Hamas’ use of holding hostages. The propaganda campaign is working and shaping public discourse.

A Passing Pattern

While this piece centers on the Meriden case, it resembles other recent CAIR‑assisted media pushes: the detention of Muhammad Ibrahim, cousin of Sayfollah Musallet, in Florida; and Chicago news reports that Khamis Ayad was killed, when in fact the cause of his death was smoke inhalation. Each follows the same script: emotional family testimony, unverified accusations, politicians echoing the advocacy line, and CAIR positioned as the authoritative voice.

Conclusion

These are not isolated stories. They are provocations dressed as journalism. In Meriden, viewers were left believing Israel arbitrarily blocks U.S. citizens from leaving, when in reality the issue is a long‑established travel rule under Oslo. The larger pattern shows how quickly CAIR’s narrative can dominate local broadcasts, with facts reduced to footnotes. Viewers deserve better: context, verification, and balance, not ready‑made advocacy campaigns packaged as news. This has been true throughout the pro‑Hamas campaign launched on October 8, 2023, which has accused Israel of genocide, infanticide, rape, torture, terrorism, discrimination, and now hostage taking – in short, of Israel being a rogue country, committing all the very crimes that Palestinians themselves are guilty of committing. This is right out of the Nazi playbook; accuse others of what you yourself are guilty of — a propaganda tactic designed to invert reality and smear Israel with the very crimes committed by its enemies.