But let's keep the ones that restrict their intelligence gathering to shadowing the 100,000 or so Arabs inside our universities and 7/11s
Fine. But how do we identify the ones restricting their intelligence gathering to this purpose? Also, if the means by which these Arabs are tracked can be used for intelligence against the US, I don't know about you, but I regard that as a potential problem.
Not too difficult. If we've had the dozen or two in detention for this long then the opportunities to pick out the effective ones wouldn't be too hard. Since our interests with them overlap to such a great degree and unlike China (in your example), Israel is our close ally, then it makes good sense to use their services. Heck, I'd have these kids over for dinner and maybe buy some of their art.
But I do agree with you to the extent that I do not want any foreigners in my country whether they are top level espionage all the way down to kids cutting their teeth, gathering intel while selling art. What concerns me more is the money being funneled from Saudi Arabia and other countries who wish to do us harm to some media front org's and moles in the upper echelons of government, intelligence and research. We've got some character on this thread who writes for antiwar.com. IMHO he's more of an enemy at this time in history than some kids from Israel selling art.