A civil rights group is challenging Israel's highly effective airport security practices, charging that they amount to racial profiling that singles out Arabs for tougher treatment.
At a Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday, civil rights lawyers demanded an end to the policy. Such profiling is illegal in the US, where passengers must be singled out for security checks on a random basis.
But some terrorism experts say Israel's measures work precisely because they take ethnicity into account and warn that equality at the airport could cost lives.
Israel is considered a prime target for hijackers and other attackers because of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and extremist Islamic rejection of the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Despite that, there hasn't been a successful attack on an Israeli airliner in decades, and experts point to Israel's security procedures as a key factor.
Many of the measures are kept secret, but known precautions on Israeli airliners include armored luggage compartments, armed sky marshals and reinforced cockpits. But a key to preventing attacks, experts say, is the screening process on the ground, and that is the focus of the civil rights complaint.
Israeli Jews and Arabs get dramatically different treatment when boarding Israeli planes, as anyone who has ever stood in line at Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport has seen.
Hanna Swaid, an Israeli Arab, remembers being strip-searched by gruff security guards and having his luggage taken apart piece by piece 20 years ago before he flew from Israel to London, where he was a post-doctoral student.
Today Swaid is an Israeli Arab lawmaker, and he regularly receives complaints from Arab citizens about similar treatment. He said he knows of cases in which Arabs who serve in Israel's police or military have been singled out for extra scrutiny.
But the court appeal by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel are hobbled by the government's refusal to discuss any of the policy's details.
In court, the government's attorneys would not reveal the screening criteria or admit that ethnicity was one of them. They agreed to divulge the information only in a closed session that excluded everyone but the judges and themselves.
Swaid says he understands the need for security checks.
"It's in my interest and that of all the other travelers,'' he said.
But the screening should be done equally for both Arabs and Jews and be done politely, he said, rather than the humiliating treatment commonplace today.
"In what's known as the profiling process, any Arab is seen as a threat, and it's not a good feeling for an Arab to pass through the airport with this tag of being a suspect," he said.
Swaid said Israel should adopt a model closer to the US policy that bars ethnic profiling and instead relies on random checks and screening based on country of origin. He is now drafting legislation that would change the current policy.
But since the devastating attacks in the US on Sept. 11, 2001, it's largely been the other way around: The US has followed Israel's lead in many aspects of airport security, and a number of major US airports have imported Israeli experts and advisers.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
RSS