by redharen » Fri Apr 22, 2011 5:16 pm
This is a good question.
Whether you would be regarded as a security threat at Ben-Gurion depends on a lot of things, like how common your name is, whether it would be unquestionable that the person who signed a bunch of anti-Israel petitions was actually you, what those petitions were calling for (better treatment of Palestinians in vague terms? sanctions? violence? overthrow of the state?), how long ago you signed them, etc.
If you're traveling alone, though, that's a red flag that tends to get you singled out. If you're traveling with some kind of pilgrimage/tourist group, or if you're traveling with Israelis, you probably won't get any trouble at all. You might contact tour companies that do Israel tours because sometimes they like to get extra people on their flights (even if they don't sign on for the rest of the trip) because it helps them get group rates on airline tickets. Then you're coming in with a mob of tourists with matching hats and bags and you'll get no trouble.
Before you even get on the plane for Israel, of course, they'll ask you what your plans are, where you're going, who you're planning to visit, etc. In any case I wouldn't bring anything that makes it look like you're going to the West Bank (Arabic phrasebooks or anything like that) and I would have a plausible itinerary for places in Israel proper you might visit. It would be good, too, to have a list of Israeli contacts and places where you can say you're planning to stay.
I would say that overall, the chances of you actually being sent home if you tried to enter through Ben-Gurion would be really slim, and even more so if you consciously try to get rid of red flags and try to project a non-threatening image.
If you go in through the Allenby Bridge, like Cold says, you'll still be dealing with Israeli security, so they'll still ask you questions, but threat perceptions from that direction are different and I don't know what the M.O for turning people away is. I can say that several of my friends who studied in Amman last summer took a bus to East Jerusalem via the Allenby Bridge and didn't have any trouble. They were a bunch of lefties too, so you'll probably do OK if you go that way as well.