Last week Israel deported three Swedish women from Ben-Gurion International Airport who had arrived in a group of seven young people of Jewish and Palestinian heritage, active members of a Jewish-Palestinian education group in Sweden. The three women - all Swedish citizens of Palestinian background, two of whom were born in Sweden - were loaded onto a plane home after being held at the airport for eight hours of intermittent questioning...

It's hard to believe that the three Swedish women in question threatened national security, having come to Israel for educational purposes and to coordinate meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. The policy of closing the country's doors to visitors based on their political ideology is foreign to democratic countries. The fact that the group's Jewish members were ultimately allowed to stay while the Swedes of Palestinian origin were not colors the affair with more than a tinge of race-based discrimination...