You’re an Arab? Strip

[Jefferson23]

The unnecessary, humiliating treatment that multitudes of Arab Israelis suffer routinely in Israel's airports must be done away with for good.
Haaretz Editorial | Feb. 28, 2014 | 5:40 AM


Ezies Elias Shehadeh is an Israeli teacher who has been teaching for 19 years at a Jewish high school in Tirat Carmel. She recently accompanied her students on a school trip to Eilat. But the fact that she is a Christian Arab immediately aroused the suspicions of the airport security screeners, turning her trip into a gantlet of humiliations.

Orly Vilnai reported in Haaretz that when Elias Shehadeh and her students arrived at the airport, she was separated from them, then forced to strip and stand in her underwear to undergo a “security check.” The checkers even ran their hands through her hair and over her body. “When I complained, they asked me: ‘Do you want to do this the easy way, or stay here?’ I went through close to an hour of humiliation that way,” she related.

It’s impossible to make light of what Elias Shehadeh went through – an experience common to many Arab citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem, and even to foreign tourists entering Israel. Many of them suffer body searches, personal questions and invasions of privacy, often for no real reason, but simply because of an arbitrary decision by the screeners.

The Israel Airports Authority and the security agencies have a plethora of excuses and justifications. They claim that all such procedures are carried out in accordance with the law, in order “to make sure that the passenger would not board the airplane with objects in her purse or on her person that could endanger the security of the plane and the passengers.” But passenger security can be ensured without unnecessary humiliations. Today, there are plenty of technological devices that can be used in place of humiliating procedures.

remainder: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.576995

[Scootaloo]

1. "They claim that all such procedures are carried out in accordance with the law"

Because "It's legal!" is such a great argument to make about this sort of thing. Honestly, in any nation, if the ONLY defense of a law that can be mustered is "well, it's legal!" the law should be immediately abolished.

[Jefferson23]

2. Right, as our beloved Patriot Act..it's legal! Stop and Frisk, it's legal!

Ability to purchase a huge arsenal of bullets, it's legal!

We could go on and on...the fanatics that brought these measures up to become
law, disgusting.