Posted on 06/03/2007 10:27:54 AM PDT by Alouette
US airport security check leaves Dr Dorit Zilberman distraught, after reportedly being humiliated only because of her nationality. 'My family perished in Europe's gas chambers, I never thought 65 years later I would be marked, isolated, and put in a gas chamber'
Itamar Eichner Published: 06.03.07, 09:48 / Israel News
An Israeli doctor who underwent tight security checks at San Francisco International claims that she was humiliated only because of her nationality.
Dr Dorit Zilberman, a senior urologist at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer who was visiting the United States for the first time for a professional conference, claimed that airport security officials led her to what she called a sort of "gas chamber", where she was sprayed with a strong current of air for two minutes, which caused her great pain.
Zilberman filed a complaint with the Foreign Ministry on the matter, and sources at the ministry said they would discuss the subject with the Americans, while adding that the number of Israeli complaints of treatment at American airports has recently been on the rise.
After her handbag passed the standard airport screening, Zilberman was told she had to undergo further security checks and was asked to step aside.
"They took me aside, examined me scrupulously. It was a pretty humiliating situation," Zilberman wrote in her complaint.
The doctor claimed that once she presented her Israeli passport she was told to walk on a different path than the other passengers. "It was a dead end path that led to a kind of corner," she told Ynet.
"I thought I misheard the instructions and I tried to retrace my steps, another woman from the security crew ordered me to stop in a tone as if she was talking to a retard. She told me 'You don't understand, it says here that you should stop and wait for a crew member to approach you.'"
'I have never experienced such humiliation'
Zilberman then asked another crew member why this was being done to her, and if it was because she was Israeli. The crew member simply answered, "I don't know."
Zilberman said she was then lead to a sealed chamber and asked to get in, she was told that she would feel "a flow like in the shower".
"When I walked in, barrages of compressed gas - probably air - were fired at me. Since I am thin, it was very painful. I was then taken out of that 'gas chamber' and taken to another corner where I was asked to take off my shoes, my hand bag was taken from me and my belongings were taken out one by one and scanned along with my shoes in special paper for tracing dangerous substances.
"At that point I started to cry and told the man that in my country I am a respected doctor, and that I had never experienced such a chain of humiliations. He told me that if I didn’t like it, I could call the supervisor."
Zilberman said that in all the countries she had visited, she had never experienced such humiliation just because she was Israeli.
"My family perished in the gas chambers in Europe. I never believed that 65 years later, I would be marked, isolated and taken into a gas chamber."
An examination by Yedioth Ahronoth reporter Aryeh Egozi showed that the so-called "gas chamber" Zilberman spoke of is meant to track traces of explosive materials on passengers' clothing.
Air currents meant to release particles of explosives are sprayed at the passenger, and sensors in the chamber examine these particles.
The examination method was authorized by all relevant bodies in the United States and poses no damage whatsoever to the examinee. European airport authorities are considering applying a similar search method as well.
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Nothing personal. Airport security humiliates everyone. It’s the American way!
Gee,I wonder if there are any scrupulous examinations being conducted at Israeli airports.We can only thank God that she lived to tell of her time in one of our "gas chambers".
Hah!
My kids love that thing! They call it the “Puffer Machine” and I have to stand in the one line that has the Puffer Machine whenever we travel.
dung.
Welcome to America! If we were allowed to profile, you would have been waived right through. Direct your complaints to the ACLU and CAIR.
Doing my worse Myron Cohen impersonation:
'She's a Doktah and she talks like this? Oy, veh.'
God,I remember Myron Cohen.He was my parents' favorite comedian when I was growing up during the 60's.He was FUNNY!
Summertime and puffer machines...it makes the mind whirl!
dung.
The Israeli's and the Europeans have far better security then we do. There, they 'interview' passengers by someone trained to detect something out of the ordinary (body language, nervousness, etc.). Then, if they suspect something, you are given a second interview and a much more intensive scrutiny. Most of the security people in the US are low paid and poorly trained.
That he was. I remember him from the Ed Sullivan show. My favorite joke of his was the one of the Jewish businessmen talking in Miami, both now long retired.
"So how did you come to retire to Miami?"
"Well, after 50 years in the clothing business, I was flooded out, collected the insurance money and moved for the warm weather. and You?"
"Similar story. 35 years I ran a deli, on east Fifth. Three years ago, wouldn't ya know, a fire wipes me out and here I am."
"A fire? wow that is too bad."
Long pause, then the second man asks:
"one thing, I am curious about. How do you start a flood?"
She can just stay home if she doesn’t like our security. And something tells me this whiny public protest will have earned her a special spot on the Israeli airport/airline security watch lists. I hear they don’t take any crap over there.
In some countries you are required to hand over expensive camera equipment to armed thugs as a show of good faith. Here they just steal them out of your luggage painlessly!
Grow up, Doctor. I’m a Jew and a retired US naval officer. I’ve been hand-patted, spread-eagled, and made to stand in an air-blast sniffer chamber when flying commercial. You sound like the whiney, hand-wringing liberals I had to resign from my synagogue to escape.
Funny that comedians back then could make an entire family (Mom, Dad, eight kids) all howl with laughter and not use a single bad word or sex scenario.
I watched Rodney Dangerfield on TV all the time and he was hilarious. I saw him perform in concert and he was unbelievably raunchy.
I don’t know why anyone thinks Rosie O’Donnell is a comedian. I’ve never found her to be funny at all. Just gross.
Jackie Mason is the greatest of them all!
Who knows maybe someone got a report that terrorist were planning on using forged Israeli passports to get into the US in the belief that security would not be as focused on Israeli citizens. Or it could just be the TSA people being their usual charming and welcoming selves.
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