Donna Shalala, of Lebanese descent, says she was questioned for 3 hours at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport during visit last month.
A former secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department says she was detained and interrogated at the Ben-Gurion International Airport in Israel last month.
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Former U.S. President George Bush giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to University of Miami President Donna Shalala in 2008
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| Photo by: AP |
Donna Shalala, who is of Lebanese descent, is now the president of the University of Miami. She was visiting Israel in July as part of a delegation of university leaders invited by the American Jewish Committee's Project Interchange.
Shalala stayed after the convention to meet with a group setting up a new medical school in Israel.
University spokeswoman Margot Winick said in an email that Shalala was detained as she was leaving Israel to undergo a set of security questions and a luggage search that took nearly 3 hours. But she didn't miss her flight.
Israeli airport authority officials said there was no record of the search.
