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Last update - 08:28 20/03/2008
Palestinian Americans warned of security profiling at B-G Airport
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies
Tags: Terrorism, Civil Rights 

Authorities may question Palestinian Americans on arrival in Israel and require them to obtain a Palestinian Authority travel documents, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.

Israel's airline security also faced a legal challenge Wednesday from a civil rights group charging that its practice of ethnic profiling is racist because it singles out Arabs for tougher treatment, and Arab American groups slammed the government's travel warning as condoning Israel's policies.

"American citizens whom Israeli authorities judge may be of Palestinian origin are likely to face additional, and often time consuming, questioning by immigration and border authorities," the State Department said in a travel warning to U.S. citizens.
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It added that Israel may require persons judged to have residency status in the West Bank or Gaza to use a Palestinian Authority travel document to transit Israel when entering the West Bank or Gaza, and they may have to depart via the Allenby Bridge to Jordan.

James Zogby, president of Washington's Arab American Institute, said the State Department had accurately diagnosed the problem for Palestinian Americans traveling to Israel but had not done enough correct it.

At a Supreme Court hearing, civil rights lawyers demanded an end to Israel's airport racial profiling policy, which they say violates Israeli law. Racial profiling is illegal in the U.S., where passengers must be singled out for security checks on a random basis.

But some terrorism experts say Israel's measures are effective precisely
because they take ethnicity into account - and warn that equality at the
airport could cost lives.

Israel is considered a prime target for hijackers and other attackers because of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and extremist Islamic rejection of the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Despite that, there hasn't been a successful attack on an Israeli airliner in decades, and experts point to Israel's security procedures as a key factor.

Many of the measures are kept secret, but known precautions on Israeli
airliners include armored luggage compartments, armed sky marshals and
reinforced cockpits. But a key to preventing attacks, experts say, is the
screening process on the ground, and that is the focus of the civil rights complaint.

Israeli Jews and Arabs get dramatically different treatment when boarding
Israeli planes, as anyone who's ever stood in line at Israel's Ben-Gurion
International Airport has seen.

Hanna Swaid, an Israeli Arab, remembers being strip-searched by gruff security guards and having his luggage taken apart piece by piece 20 years ago before he flew from Israel to London, where he was a post-doctoral student.

Today Swaid is an Israeli Arab lawmaker, and he regularly receives complaints from Arab citizens about similar treatment. Swaid said last year a relative, a 25-year-old computer programmer, was not allowed to take his cell phone on a domestic flight, even though Jewish passengers were. He also said he knows of cases in which Arabs who serve in Israel's police or military have been singled out for extra scrutiny.

But the court appeal by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel - and any public debate of the policy - are hobbled by the government's refusal to discuss any of the policy's details.

In court, the government's attorneys would not reveal the screening criteria or admit that ethnicity was one of them. They agreed to divulge the information only in a closed session that excluded everyone but the judges and themselves.

Representatives of Israel's Transport Ministry, Ben-Gurion Airport and the Israel Airports Authority said Wednesday they would not comment before the end of legal proceedings. The next hearing is scheduled for May, and any decision in the case is at least months away.

Swaid says he understands the need for security checks. "It's in my interest and that of all the other travelers," he said.

"But the screening should be done equally for both Arabs and Jews and be done politely," he said, rather than the humiliating treatment commonplace today.

"In what's known as the profiling process, any Arab is seen as a threat, and it's not a good feeling for an Arab to pass through the airport with this tag of being a suspect," he said.

"You have to check people, but you have to do it equally and with respect."

Swaid said Israel should adopt a model closer to the U.S. policy that bars ethnic profiling and instead relies on random checks and screening based on country of origin. He is now drafting legislation that would change the current policy.

Proponents of Israel's approach say checking all passengers equally would
require manpower and resources many times greater than are needed today and would needlessly extend the time passengers spend waiting for flights.

Ariel Merari, an Israeli terrorism expert who has written about aviation
security, said ethnic profiling is both effective and unavoidable.

Israeli security personnel must learn to be more courteous, he said, but there is no denying that the policy has played a central role in Israel's enviable record: The only time an El Al airplane was hijacked was in 1968, and the last time hijackers succeeded in boarding one of its planes was in 1970.

Then the hijackers, a Palestinian woman and a Nicaraguan, were foiled by sky marshals, an innovation at the time.

"It's foolishness not to use profiles when you know that most terrorists come from certain ethnic groups and certain age groups," he said. A bomber on a plane is likely to be Muslim and young, not an elderly Holocaust survivor. We're talking about preventing a lot of casualties, and that justifies inconveniencing a certain ethnic group
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  1.   Violation of HR 22:27  |  A. 19/03/08
  2.   Screw convenience, this saves lives! 22:44  |  Gili 19/03/08
  3.   C`mon. Isn`t this crap old news already. 22:47  |  common sense 19/03/08
  4.   Its not the profiling 22:58  |  Dave Duncan 19/03/08
  5.   Jews DON"T blow up airliners 23:09  |  judith 19/03/08
  6.   Profile, but respectfully 23:09  |  Slibovitz 19/03/08
  7.   Absolutism 23:11  |  Ilya 19/03/08
  8.   Arabs are Overwhelming Majority of Terrorists 23:33  |  Straight Talk 19/03/08
  9.   The truth 23:43  |  Jean 19/03/08
  10.   More Israeli Racism 23:46  |  JJ 19/03/08
  11.   Profiling 23:58  |  Arthur 19/03/08
  12.   when was the last time a jew hijack an airline? 00:04  |  vik 20/03/08
  13.   Hope "Haaretz" journos are screened too 00:05  |  Absolute Sweden 20/03/08
  14.   its not the profiliong stupid, its that it works 00:06  |  ralph 20/03/08
  15.   Screw politically correctness - save lives! 00:22  |  Ofer 20/03/08
  16.   Regretable but necessary 00:33  |  Avi Yerushalmi 20/03/08
  17.   stupidity begets stupidity 00:34  |  peter 20/03/08
  18.   US random screening is a joke - Israel shows the way 00:41  |  Raymond from DC 20/03/08
  19.   Jews Have No Rights - Only Palestinians 00:49  |  Alex Nevilles 20/03/08
  20.   NOT OUR FAULT IF MOST TERRORISTS ARE ARABS! 00:56  |  Joey 20/03/08
  21.   Profile ME! 01:14  |  Scharker Yid 20/03/08
  22.   ISRAEL PERFECT TARGET 01:22  |  TOBIA 20/03/08
  23.   Everybody who does not like life in Israel is FREE to GO 01:30  |  Alex 20/03/08
  24.   screening Arabs 01:35  |  PalFan 20/03/08
  25.   Whom should they single out ? 02:23  |  TOMY 20/03/08
  26.   If they do not like it , use Arab plains . 02:25  |  TOMY 20/03/08
  27.   Israeli Passenger Profiling - Best In The World 02:28  |  Phil 20/03/08
  28.   Is this a joke? 02:41  |  Jon 20/03/08
  29.   Respect yes, eqaulity no 03:07  |  Jon 20/03/08
  30.   Airports USA and Israel 03:13  |  Richard 20/03/08
  31.   It really is very simple, it WORKS 04:16  |  Doc Holliday 20/03/08
  32.   Palestinian Terror Attacks Since Oslo 04:57  |  Phil 20/03/08
  33.   WHO SHOULD THEY PROFILE,CHINESE OR POLES MAYBE BRAZILIANS 05:18  |  Jorge 20/03/08
  34.   rights group 05:18  |  mb 20/03/08
  35.   Not as long as Arab terrorists profile Jews for murder 05:38  |  Nina 20/03/08
  36.   Screw Human Rights - we`re at war Haaretz 06:16  |  James Kevin O`Leary 20/03/08
  37.   Israel`s Only Concern 06:22  |  Ron 20/03/08
  38.   Who gives a shriveled rat`s ass about what they think! 06:23  |  Romano 20/03/08
  39.   #12 Vik 06:23  |  Khalid 20/03/08
  40.   NO ARABS = NO TERROR! 06:50  |  Dodi Binn 20/03/08
  41.   palestinian "Americans"(?) 07:01  |  Shmuelshachor 20/03/08
  42.   Americans are being profiled getting OFF the plane. 07:02  |  A different Ben 20/03/08
  43.   so exactly WHAT is wrong with doing it equally? 07:19  |  eric 20/03/08
  44.   A Clear Treaty Violation 07:21  |  Mark of Lewiston 20/03/08
  45.   Re the Issue of Humiliating Treatment 07:36  |  Brad 20/03/08
  46.   Palestinian American = Palestinian Arab In Thought ... 07:38  |  Lavi 20/03/08
  47.   AMERICANS should b warned of throat cutters& hijackers airoplanes 08:42  |  PETER SM 20/03/08
  48.   Mark of Lewiston 08:45  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 20/03/08
  49.   #36 Kalid 09:07  |  the smart one 20/03/08
  50.   Quit that snivelling 09:10  |  Mr Ipp 20/03/08
  51.   The other side of the story 09:17  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 20/03/08
  52.   #39 A different Ben 09:27  |  Mr Ipp 20/03/08
  53.   eric! Must you always have an opinion?? 09:49  |  S 20/03/08
  54.   PC is killing the world 10:10  |  Steve 20/03/08
  55.   Not only Arabs are singled out 10:18  |  Linichka 20/03/08
  56.   45 Margie 10:23  |  Mark of Lewiston 20/03/08
  57.   Highjaking Khalid #39 10:25  |  rondi 20/03/08
  58.   Racism? 10:45  |  David Nigel Braham 20/03/08
  59.   #48 Margie in Tel Aviv 10:59  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 20/03/08
  60.   #42 Americans are being profiled getting OFF the plane. 11:01  |  Steve 20/03/08
  61.   airport screening 11:05  |  ingrid 20/03/08
  62.   #47 PETER SM 11:08  |  PETER SM 20/03/08
  63.   what is next ? 11:09  |  Atilla Karagözoğlu 20/03/08
  64.   airport screening 11:13  |  ingrid 20/03/08
  65.   Palestinians value death, perform acts of blind terror 11:13  |  Johnny 20/03/08
  66.   Almost 100% of terrorists are muslims 11:14  |  Johnny 20/03/08
  67.   # 46 11:22  |  Steve 20/03/08
  68.   Thank you for the treatment to the Genocidal Arab Leaders! 11:28  |  H. Kollen 20/03/08
  69.   to Khalid 11:49  |  Chicano