French Journalist Denied Entry at Ben Gurion Airport and Deported

This morning, Thursday, French journalist Alice Proust was denied entry into Israel after landing at Ben Gurion Airport in order to arrange a permanent work visa and continue her journalistic work in the region. According to a report on I24NEWS, the Population and Immigration Authority acted quickly and refused to allow her entry, following an unequivocal recommendation from Avi Cohen Sklay, director general of the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

Proust was put on a flight back to France shortly afterward and was formally expelled from the country, a move described as a significant escalation in Israel’s campaign against hostile hasbara and manifestations of antisemitism under the guise of journalism.

The decision followed an extensive and thorough review by the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism into the journalist’s activity. The review found highly serious evidence, including a long series of harsh anti-Israel and antisemitic statements by Proust.

Among other things, the journalist publicly legitimized the horrific October 7 massacre by using sanitized language about “examining the events in their context,” and accused the State of Israel and IDF fighters of carrying out a “massacre” and running an “apartheid” regime.

Proust had sought the official work visa through the French broadcaster Radio France, but in light of these extreme findings, the government decided to take a hard line and not allow her to continue working from within Israel.

It should be noted that Proust is not a new figure in the local media scene. For the past six years, she had been living intermittently in the Jerusalem and Ramallah areas. During that period, she worked as a freelance reporter for a long list of major and highly influential French media outlets, including the respected newspaper Le Figaro, the television network TV5Monde, and the left-wing news site Mediapart.

Throughout her years of activity, she was considered one of the most prominent and critical voices against Israel in the French media, and her current expulsion marks a new red line set by Jerusalem.

Officials stressed in this context that freedom of the press is a supreme value in a democratic state, but it can in no way serve as a cover or refuge for public incitement, support for terrorist organizations, or orchestrated campaigns of delegitimization against the very existence of the state.

The minister in charge, Amichai Chikli, warmly welcomed the dramatic move and made clear that the era in which journalists could blacken Israel’s image from within has ended completely. Chikli said the rules of the game have changed irreversibly, and that anyone who chooses to support Hamas or promote international boycott movements against Israel will find the door shut.

In his remarks, the minister also addressed the expected diplomatic criticism from the government in Paris, and sent a particularly sharp and pointed message toward French President Emmanuel Macron and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.

According to Chikli, the decision to expel the journalist was easier than ever, precisely in light of the hostile policy of the French leadership, which chose to reward terror and recognize a Palestinian state while Israeli hostages languish in captivity, alongside the imposition of unilateral sanctions on Israeli ministers and citizens.

The ministry’s director general added that the system will continue to denounce and block every manifestation of antisemitism, both within the country’s borders and beyond them.