Three years ago, Salim Kayat, a 74-year-old businessman, arrived at Ben-Gurion International Airport for his flight abroad. Kayat, a member of one of the families that comprised Haifa's moneyed Arab nobility until 1948, arrived at the airport with his wife, Paula, and her elderly mother, who suffers from heart disease and sits in a wheelchair. They were bound for Italy to visit their daughters, and then to Austria, to attend the wedding of Edgar Kayat, Salim's son from a previous marriage.

According to a suit brought by the Kayats' attorneys, Alexander and Inbal Beit Halahmi, "they presented their luggage for security inspections, as required, and X-ray screening revealed nothing suspicious. Then, three security officials appeared and ordered them to step aside and empty their suitcases and carry-on luggage, while passing each item through an X-ray screening instrument. Here, as well, no suspicious items were revealed."

At that point, Kayat showed the inspectors a certificate from the honorary consul of Spain in Haifa. But the inspectors ignored the certificate and began to search them, "at first, with an electronic wand, and, later, by means of very thorough use of hands, which included inspection of intimate areas." The latter included a body search of Kayat's elderly mother-in-law, who was lifted from her wheelchair. At the end of these inspections, Kayat was informed that he would not be permitted to board the plane with a hand-held bag containing medical instruments used to check blood pressure and blood glucose. Kayat told the security officials that without the blood glucose meter, he would be forced to fast throughout the flight. This did not persuade them to change their orders.

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"At the end of lengthy examinations," the attorneys wrote, "security officials accompanied the three passengers, in a humiliating manner, along the entire path to the airline counter, to ensure that their carry-on luggage would be checked onto the plane, and then to passport control, and to their gate, as if they were criminals being deported to another country or expelled from Israel."

The hours that Kayat was forced to spend without eating, "and the pressure and shock," caused by the incident, aggravated his medical condition, and he was forced to rely on insulin injections throughout his visit to Europe. In his petition to the Magistrate's Court in Haifa, against the Israel Airports Authority and the Prime Minister's Office, which is responsible for general security, Kayat demanded compensation in the form of NIS 100,000.

For the judge's eyes only

Details of the appeal were still unclear when, in preliminary stages, the state refused to reveal protocol pertaining to security inspections at Ben-Gurion International Airport. The state's representatives told Judge Yaakov Wagner that the defense minister had issued a gag order to block this testimony. The Kayats' attorneys had intended to argue that the inspections deviated from official protocol or that the inspectors employed unacceptable protocol that discriminates against Arabs. Since the trial could not be conducted without knowledge of the protocol, the Kayats' attorneys appealed to the High Court to lift the gag order.

Justice Elyakim Rubinstein ruled that the state must present the inspections protocol to Judge Wagner, but not to the Kayat family or their legal representatives. Thus, the deliberations of the case will take place only in the presence of one side - the defendants. Rubinstein's decision means that the entire ruling, or significant aspects of it, will also be delivered only to defendants. If the Magistrate's Court sees fit to quote elements of the inspections protocol in its ruling, "those parts of the ruling will be secret." Rubinstein also leaves it to the state to decide which parts of the ruling will be concealed. In this way, the High Court has blocked the Kayats' ability to appeal the ruling.

Nearly all Israeli Arabs who travel abroad experience similar humiliation. First, security officials identify them as Arabs and ask them to leave the line of waiting passengers; then, they are asked to open their suitcases so that every item may be slowly examined, and finally they are subjected to lengthy questioning. The few Israeli Arab passengers who are willing to fly with El Al or other Israeli carriers are subjected to a similar process abroad, before boarding the plane back to Israel.

Fatmeh El-Ajou, an attorney for the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, says that these discriminatory inspections saw the demise of Sharm al-Sheikh holiday deals, which were once very popular among Israeli Arabs. Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a professor of criminology at Hebrew University, says that thinking about protracted suffering at the airport causes her to forgo about half of the international conferences that she is invited to attend.

Baker Awdi, director of the Center Against Racism, said that most Israeli Arabs interviewed in focus groups considered airport inspections to be a blatant symbol of discrimination.

Discussions with Israeli Arab frequent fliers reveal that academics are subjected to longer, more annoying and more insulting questioning, particularly if they are headed for international conferences. "I recently began lying," says historian Dr. Adel Mana. "If I say that I am traveling as a tourist, they only take apart my suitcase. But if I say that I'm attending a conference, they take apart my suitcase and also ask me endless, ludicrous questions that have no connection to the security of the flight: Where is the conference located? Who invited you? Who paid for the ticket? Who else will participate? What is the content of your presentation? I once asked the inspector if he really wanted me to lecture to him on early 19th century Palestinian society in Jerusalem. He said yes."

To date, none of the Israeli organizations that employ Arabs (universities, hospitals, legal firms, etc.) have taken measures to protect their employees from this humiliation.

Organizations that defend Arab rights in Israel have thus far also failed to grapple with this phenomenon. Jafer Farah, director of the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, says that his organization now encourages those subjected to humiliating inspections to sue for compensation, even if it means presenting personal suits against security officials.

'Meeting security needs'

"This is the first time that I have heard of this phenomenon," responds Hebrew University President Menachem Megidor. He confirms that he has heard of similar questioning of foreign (neither Arab nor Jewish) academics invited to attend conferences at the university. Megidor promised to investigate the matter and he says that if he finds that the phenomenon indeed exists, "the university will undertake grave measures to respond."

The Shin Bet security service, which issues orders to Airports Authority security officials, rejects these claims. Shin Bet officials reported, by means of the Prime Minister's Office, that inspections, "are implemented only to meet security needs on the flight and are by no means conducted, in order to gather information about passengers.

Moreover, information provided to security officials is not documented nor is it transferred to organizations unrelated to flight security." The Shin Bet avoided responding to questions regarding the requirement that Arab academics present the content of their lectures abroad: "All questions are asked in the context of the security inspection. The only objective is to secure the flight."

Security experts explain that there is no intention to humiliate Arab passengers, and that, even if it is not readily apparent, all questions are based on solid logic. Questioning at the airport is based on two principles: Taking maximum security precautions, and employing a profiling system to choose interrogation subjects.

The profiling system is based on a focus on passengers who belong to what are defined as high-risk categories: Arabs are more dangerous than Jews, young people are more dangerous than older people and educated individuals are more dangerous than their less educated peers. Another principle of questioning addresses the honesty of subjects: The objective of asking many questions is to uncover contradictions that would reveal a subject's attempt to conceal information.

"Despite that," says a security expert who examines the work of the Shin Bet, "almost all Shin Bet leaders, in recent decades, know that inspections at the airport are abusive and cause unnecessary suffering to Arab passengers. The problem is that they all maintain a low profile and wait for someone at the political level to take the responsibility of ordering an end to the use of this system."