No, America Should Not Adopt the Israeli Airport Security System Based on Racial Profiling

posted on: May 31, 2016

BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has issued a warning of longer security lines for this summer. Passengers should anticipate up to three hours of waiting in security lines because: one, there’s an increase in people able and willing to fly; and two, federal spending on the TSA has been cut tremendously, resulting in less TSA agents able to screen passengers quickly enough.

While many are worried that these cuts may mean missing a flight, some fear that terrorists and life-threatening objects may get past the short-staffed security agents more easily.

In an article published by Forward on May 21, its writer, Jay Michaelson, argues that the American airport system is entirely broken, with 95% of TSA screeners failing to detect weapons, according to a recent test. He goes on to say that Americans are slowed down by the tediousness of checking every item and throwing out non-threatening items, such as water bottles and 4 ounces of hand lotion.

Asking elderly people in wheelchairs to stand up and walk through security is criticized as one part of U.S. airport security that slows down the line

Michaelson argues that the U.S. should look to Israel for better airport security practices because of the country’s “effective” people-screening process, which the U.S. lacks. He says the Israeli system of profiling people who seem more threatening, and asking them a few questions could boost the lousy American system.

Michaelson seems well intentioned with his proposal by saying the U.S. should adopt the Israel security system, and only take out the racial profiling aspect of Israel’s people-screening technique. But clearly, Michaelson has never been truly screened by Israeli security. As many Arab Americans and their travel buddies can attest to, this system of “scoping out the terrorists” by asking a few questions does not take a couple of minutes. For some visiting Israel, it takes 30 minutes, 3 hours, 8 hours, or 12 hours, with none of them being threats to Israel’s security.

To say that Israel’s racial profiling system is achievable, without the racial profiling, is to not fully understand the Israeli system. Israelis can shamelessly use a racial profiling system because, objectively speaking, it is an ethnocentric state created for Jews, and Jews only. The reason the Israeli system seems good is because it uses racial profiling to screen people, not because it asks questions.

People stand in line to go through passport control at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel – photo from timesofisrael.com

Arab Americans interrogated by Israeli security are often asked: Who is your father? Who is your grandfather? Do you have any family in the West Bank? Why are you in Israel? Do you know this person (and reads a name)? Are you Muslim?

If the traveler is lucky, those are the only questions he or she will get. If unlucky, the traveler will get interrogated. Common interrogation questions include: What’s your address? What’s your email address? What’s your other email address? Why didn’t you give me all of your email addresses when I asked the first time? Where do you work? Where do you go to school? What’s your phone number? And of course, the questions asking who your father is and why you’re here will also be asked again throughout.

Are these the interrogative inquiries Michaelson thinks are appropriate to ask of “suspicious looking” Americans in a screening process? Civil rights laws say no.

This process does not just affect Arabs going into Israel; the waiting area for those pulled aside for questioning is filled with people from all around the world, except Europeans and white Americans. Funny enough, people who are of mixed Arab and European ancestry usually have no problems getting through without an extended wait.

There are numerous accounts of Arab Americans being turned away by Israeli security for countless unknown reasons. The U.S. has refused to participate in a visa waiver program with Israel because the country does not afford Arab American visitors the same respect it gives non-Arab Americans.

According to Business Insider, the first number on the yellow sticker placed on passports of visitors to Israel is indicative of that person’s threat level, and therefore how much they must endure at security.

As one can imagine, this security process is arduous and tolling on the mind.

Two Palestinian American brothers, Shadi and Wissam Rafeedie, from Houston, Texas, have traveled to Israel and the West Bank, and they will never forget their experiences with Israeli security forces.

Wissam, a real estate agent, said frankly, “I saw segregation first hand.” Wissam compared his experiences to the segregation policies in the American South during the 1950s. “I couldn’t believe that in the 21st Century, a country that is a member of the United Nations is using segregated lines to identify who a person is and how security should treat them,” Wissam said referring to the security lines he had to stand in that were labeled “Jewish,” “Palestinian,” and “International.”

Wissam had the courage to ask why so many people kept going in front of him to meet with Israeli security, and the soldier responded, “because they are Jewish and you are not, you are Palestinian, now be quiet and wait your turn.”

Shadi, a law student at the University of Texas, retold his experience with Israeli security from four years ago, saying the stories he heard of people being turned away and humiliated did not prepare him for this: “My passport was thrown across the counter at my face, I was put in a different line because I happen to be Palestinian, my backpack was emptied haphazardly because the soldiers knew they could do it, my sister cried while soldiers laughed at her fear, an old Palestinian woman was berated by an Israeli soldier because she was in the wrong line.”

What sticks out from their stories is their shock from the way they were treated. Like most American millennials, the Rafeedie brothers had a hard time understanding the segregation and disrespectful treatment from Israeli security because that’s no longer part of the American reality for most, which is exactly why such a system would not work in the U.S.

Michaelson added to his argument: “Of course, this holds the potential for profiling and abuse, but so does our current system.”

Yes, the U.S. airport security system needs to be reevaluated, but trading it in for a system based on racial profiling is not the answer, not only because it’s wrong, but because Americans cannot tolerate it. American millennials today understand tolerance, multiculturalism, and equality far better than this level of discrimination.

Perhaps in Michaelson’s world, he has never had to experience discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, or national origin. But for the Arab Americans who have, they would not wish that on others. It’s not only humiliating for the Arab getting “randomly” searched or interrogated, but detrimental to the image of the collective community when non-Arabs witness it happening.

What Americans feel like they gain in security, the Arab American community would – yet again – lose in dignity from adopting the Israeli security system.