Wash. Post tears into Israeli airport security checks that profile Arabs

American Thinker ^ | 11/27/10 | Lee Rennert

[Nachum]

The headline and lead paragraph of Jerusalem correspondent Janine Zacharia's Nov. 27 article might lead readers of the Washington Post to believe that they're about to find out why many in the aviation industry consider Israel's screening of passengers the gold standard in airport security measures. ("Israeli air security is easy on most, intrusive for a few" page A7).

But they would be wrong. Because, it turns out, the bulk of her article is a full-bore attack on Israel's profiling methods, including special scrutiny of Arab travelers..

The result of such profiling, Zacharia reports, is that most travelers pass through airport security with "relative ease." "But," she emphasizes, and this is the real purport of her story, "But Israeli personnel do single out small numbers of passengers for extensive searches and screening, based on profiling methods that have so far been rejected in the United States, subjecting Arabs and, in some cases, other foreign nationals to an extensive screening that comes with a deep civil liberties price."

[Ramius]

That’s because there’s a huge difference between domestic and international flights. We don’t have the same requirements for domestic travel as there are for international travel. Nor should there be.

[RobbyS]

Better than this nonsense. I have a passport, BTW.

[Ramius]

I don’t think we need to go to the place where we’re requiring passports for domestic travel. Even if we did... they’re less useful for that anyway, since domestic travel hops aren’t recorded in passports.

I would like to see some of the other Israeli methods take hold here though. For example: Israeli security begins at curbside. They have agents wandering the airport even outside the secure areas, just watching people and observing them, sometimes approaching and chatting them up. Some of the agents are more obvious (like the ones with dogs) and some are plainclothes to look just like another traveler. They become fairly expert at observing people and noticing the little differences between what ordinary travelers look like, talk like, and act like— and what “just doesn’t look right”. This is real “screening”. Sure... there’s “profiling” going on, but it’s not racial profiling— it’s terrorist profiling.

They’ve got the same agents milling around inside the security checkpoints, too. In the gate areas... in the restaurants, bars, shops... some of them are obvious, even in uniform, and some of them are not so obvious. A plainclothes officer may sidle up to a traveler and make some kind of smalltalk while looking at the departures screens... or chat somebody up in the bar... or in the chairs in the gate area.

All the while they’re looking for that person that just isn’t like all the others. That guy with something ominous on his mind. And make no mistake— the guy who’s about to do something that will result in his death has some pretty serious sh!7 on his mind. He’ll stand out like a beacon in the night if you’re paying attention and looking for the right things.

The TSA could easily be training up some folks to do this stuff. It’s not hard. It doesn’t even take all that much training. Most of the best training would be on the job anyway. After a few months we could have thousands of profiling experts out there. Hell— put me in charge and I’ll do it.

[RobbyS]

Well, yes, but obviously those who run TSA are driven by the fear that they will be accused of “discriminating.” In our society this is the same as blasphemy in former times.

[gogogodzilla]

Israeli’s don’t really profile based on the Arab ethnicity... they profile based on terrorist actions and behavior.

It just so happens that most Arab Muslims also act like terrorists.

Funny that no one dare speak that bit of information...