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 didnt 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.
My husband’s new titanium and ceramic hip means that he gets wanded and patted and the whole kit and caboodle each time. He wondered if there were some way to get a card stating that he has a prosthesis, and should be waved through. I told him that I certainly hope not - can you imagine how easy those would be to get?
Alas! Poor Rosie. I still remember her early in her career when she was one of the VJ’s on VH1 (Video Hits One, back when music TV played music) in ‘88. I actually liked her movie bits.
“...TSA plans to increase security by conducting body cavity searches of babies ...”
Not such a farfetched notion. “ Ok this baby had strained prunes one hour ago. Either you take me into the cockpit or I loosen the diaper!!”
Judging by your description of the events that took place, I think the jury is still out on that one.
“The Israeli’s and the Europeans have far better security then we do.”
This is because they are allowed to profile, which we are not. Remember, they do not have an ACLU.
All a terrorist needs to do is have a hip replacement.
With a bomb inside.
Ummm, forget it. I didn't mean that. I take it back. Just joking! You didn't see this!
1. I think the woman from the security crew WAS talking to, as the esteemed doctor so eloquently put it, "a retard."
2. Someone should teach the esteemed doctor not to call people "retards."
3. The esteemed doctor should be psychiatrically evaluated if she actually thought the puffer machine was a gas chamber, because we got rid of the on-site gas chambers in American airports at least 6 years ago..
4. Someone should tell the esteemed doctor to stop being such a freaking crybaby.
5. There should be a special line for all the people who bellyache about having to go through airport security: the line that takes them to the bus to the nearest train station/car rental agency/cruise ship port.
Part of me sympathizes with this lady. I wish there were a simpler way to maintain airport security (like ethnic profiling, if necessary).
Or better yet, she could have walked across the Southern border with few checks of any kind. The Mexigummint would have provided her with water and maps across the desert, all the way to Vegas. It beats the “horrid air blower.”
Most of the security people in the US are low paid and poorly trained.
Unfortunately, this is true. Many of them are retards. No tolerance TSA regulations are written so that security people do not have to think. Just blindly follow the rules and search 90-year-old grandmothers.
What does “jumping the shark” mean?
Are stories like this published to cause us to cease supporting them or simply because the media know there are people dumb enough to fall for such crap?
IMHO Morry Amsterdam was the funniest, but I’m not an expert, being a Presbyterian!
I don't why how in the world an Israeli (non-Arab) professional white female has to go through more than the primary screening. How on earth are candidates for the the more extensive screening singled out? I suppose it's at the whim of the TSA agent at the location. For that reason alone, I can understand her anger, but to call the place where she was a "gas chamber" is over the top.
Poorly trained or not, the TSA screeners were doing their job and this woman is a crybaby. The esteemed doctor doesn’t bother to tell us if her carry-on luggage or her shoes pinged a false positive on the explosives wipe, which seems to me to be very likely given the triple screening she went through.
Agreed, although I'm not old enough to recall some of the older ones. Plus, Mason is among the few with good political instincts and is unafraid of attacking some PC "sacred cows".
ping
So air is a chemical weapon now? Oh dang.
Two Jewish tailors were talking:
Tailor #1: I went on vacation to Rome last year and I got to meet the Pope!
Tailor #2: What sort of man is he?
Tailor #1: 46 long.
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