By Bill Benfield
UNWELCOME: Irish Nobel peace laureate and pro-Palestinian activist Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Irish Nobel peace laureate and pro-Palestinian activist Mairead Corrigan Maguire was expelled from Israel on Tuesday.
Ms Maguire was placed on an early morning flight to Britain, the Interior Ministry said.
She had been banned from Israel for 10 years after trying to sail to Gaza on a blockade-busting ship in June.
But she landed in Tel Aviv last week as part of a delegation meeting Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
She was immediately detained and held at an airport detention facility. Ms Maguire appealed but the Israeli Supreme Court upheld her deportation order late on Monday.
Ms Maguire won the 1976 Nobel peace prize for her work in Northern Ireland. In recent years, she has emerged as an outspoken critic of Israel.
At Monday’s court hearing, she called Israel an “apartheid” state, and in comments to reporters accused it of committing “ethnic cleansing.”
She has also voiced support for Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu.
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