I recently blogged about some of the failures of the Transportation Security Administration, the federal bureaucracy charged with ensuring airport security in the United States. It was therefore interesting for me to observe Israeli airport security in action during my recent trip to Israel. Israeli airport security is widely considered the best in the world. There hasn't been a successful hijacking of an airliner originating in Israel since 1969, and you can be quite sure that it's not because the terrorists haven't been trying hard enough.
I noticed two obvious differences between the US and Israeli systems. First, the Israelis forego the stupid TSA ritual of making all passengers remove their shoes. Most of the time, this is just an annoying indignity. In this case, avoiding it was a godsend, since I had a twisted ankle (I later learned that it was fractured) that turned taking my shoes on and off into a mild form of torture. Perhaps taking off shoes really does provide some important security benefit that I'm unaware of. But the fact that the Israelis don't consider it necessary suggests to me that any such benefits of this practice are questionable, at best.
The second big noticeable difference between the two approaches is that the Israelis rely far more on profiling than the TSA does. Even though I doubt that the Israeli security officials singled me out for any special scrutiny, one of them nonetheless asked me 8-10 detailed questions about my background, my reasons for visiting Israel, where I had gone, and so on. The idea is, apparently, to look for inconsistencies and other red flags that might suggest the need for closer scrutiny. Every single passenger at Ben Gurion Airport undergoes similar screening.
What can we learn from the Israeli approach? Obviously, the TSA should be compelled to forego its idiotic shoe procedures. Whether we can adopt the profiling aspect of the Israeli system is much harder to say. Israel has the advantage of having only one major airport. Requiring such individualized screening at the hundreds of major airports in the US would be much more expensive and might significantly slow down air traffic. Moreover, some of the questions the Israeli security people ask would be illegal or politically unfeasible in the US. For example, the official who questioned me asked me several questions about my level of religious observance ("what religious holidays do you celebrate?", "do you celebrate them in a synagogue?", etc.). When I explained that I wasn't religious, the Israeli official said that he wasn't either. Although this didn't happen in my case, the Israelis also engage in extensive ethnic screening, imposing especially strict scrutiny on Arabs and Muslims, including even those who are Israeli citizens; they also scrutinize even non-Arab gentiles more carefully than Jews. Such practices might not be legal in the US, and would certainly come under severe political attack if implemented. In addition, they might alienate some of the minority groups whose support we most need in the War on Terror, sch as American Muslims.
For these reasons, I'm not sure that we can fully adopt the Israeli approach to airport security in the US. Nonetheless, we should at least consider moving in the direction of more individualized screening and (nonracial) profiling, and fewer mindless rituals (such as taking off your shoes) that waste time and money without appreciably increasing security.
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby has a more detailed description of the Israeli approach here.
I seem to recall that when the shoe procedure started it was going to be used only on people targeted through profiling (nonracial, IIRC). Groups complained: It must be completely random.
My memory could well be faulty about the shoe procedure, but I still think profiling of any type would be subject to the same political pressures as racial profiling. A lot of people will see profiling, however it's done, as a proxy for racial or ethnic profiling.
If the police find a dead woman in a park with signs of sexual trauma where a condom was used, it is entirely within the realm of physical possibility that the sexual assault and murder were committed by a woman. The police will nonetheless focus entirely on males in the absence of strong contrary evidence.
The analogy is extreme but valid (I hardly imagine Nick Good meant that all profiling is as effective as profiling by sex in sex crimes). You can argue all you want about the morality of profiling, whether it's worth it, and whether the organization of your choice is too incompetent to use it properly, but ultimately the cold-blooded application of statistical inference cannot help but be more effective on average than randomness.
This process would not be possible in the U.S., as others have pointed out. But what is possible in the U.S. is a certain level of common sense - the shoes are questionable indeed and add to that, the prohibition against lighters, which has finally been reversed.
My hat is off to Flash for noting the primary difference in screening objectives - things over people. The "things" approach can always be defeated by a patient enemy. But if the enemy itself is addressed, then security will be much more effective for something like the aviation industry which cannot be put behind fortress-like walls.
It's really more suspicious people- I don't have the time to look it up at the moment, but there's a case from the 80s where they stopped a white woman from Europe whose answers didn't make sense. Turned out that her boyfriend was Palestinian and that he'd snuck a bomb into her luggage without telling her.
We're not struggling to establish the borders of our nation-state, and we've got certain presumptions here that the Israelis do not. Our Constitution, our ethnic and religious diversity, our love of freedom differentiates America and Israel.
Instead of asking how America can emulate Israel, we should be asking how we can separate the relationship between the two, so that America is not paying the costs via terrorism of her support of Israel.
After all, America has been here a lot longer than Israel, who is still in her birth pangs really and it's unsure in the end how healthy the baby will turn out.
We should stick with our Constitutional measures here -- maintain our civil liberties and protections for all. It's gotten us this far, and again the whole of America will never consent to live in cages, and treat portions of our populations as the Israelis do.
It's like comparing apples and bullets drawing any conclusions between the two countries. Sorry, Israel is not our equal and her tactics can not be emulated here if we're to maintain what got America here this far -- her attitudes toward the civilians making up the whole.
Depends on the methodology. If your heuristic is tainted by bias, or can be gamed, it might produce results that are less effective than a random search.
It is precisely the foolish resistance to profiling that subjects us to this humiliating waste of time. These costs are the tax we all pay for praying at the altar of diversity.
I for one would like to see a prominent political figure bring this issue up and see whether the American public would indeed prefer Israeli style profiling to the current system. The Bush administration should be faulted for not having made the case for this much earlier. Immediately after 911, it would have been much easier to get such a system institutionalized and accepted.
And that all of this would dwarf what you call the "indignity" you yourself suffered when you had to remove your shoes?
I'm also puzzled by an equivocation in your third-to-last paragraph. You say that a system of stricter airport scrutiny for people (even U.S. citizens!) of Arab ancestry and Muslim faith at U.S. airports "would certainly come under severe political attack", but only "might not be legal." You're a careful writer -- so why the equivocation? Is there any plausible argument that a system of "especially strict scrutiny" for Arabs and Muslims, including especially U.S. citizens, would not violate the Constitution under current U.S. law? Are there cases, other than Korematsu and Hirabayashi, that would support that proposition?
I'm no expert on the subject, so this is a serious question. Are you telling me that the University of Michigan Law School's desire for classroom diversity is a compelling state interest when it comes to racial discrimination, but better airport security wouldn't be?
So let me get this straight. The Israelis profile, though they were not profiling you when they asked you 8-10 questions?
This just highlights the problem with citing Israel's approach as support for profiling. As I understand it, they ask almost everyone flying a series of questions, then do more extensive searches when that questioning raises red flags. I doubt anyone would have a serious civil rights issue with this approach, though anyone who has flown out of Las Vegas on a Sunday morning might question how it could ever work in America. It works in Israel, as you say, because they have one or two major airports and a small fraction of the number of fliers we have.
So the "Israeli approach" in America would get dumbed down to searching all the dark-skinned people, which might work well for the anglos like Ann Coulter who support profiling, but not so much for someone like me. Not to mention that terrorists would game this system in a second. In any case, it would not make us any safer, just less inconvenienced (if you are white).
In the end, as far as I can tell, people who support profiling do so because they are unlikely to be profiled and they are fed up with the "indignities" of flying. What better way to channel that anger than at the stupid TSA bureaucracy?
So does anyone here support asking almost every flier 8-10 detailed questions? If not, stop citing Israel as the way we should be doing things.
Good question, but don't hold your breath waiting for a serious answer. (Hint: They don't have one.)
Huh? The time per passenger burden of doing a 100% interview screening is going to be the same whether you do it at one airport or a hundred.
And that's not just an oversight or lack of understanding on our part. It's an active political choice.
Our fear of offending our enemies and their sympathisers prevents us from adopting the Israeli approach.
More expensive because you would have to staff hundreds of airports with extra people to interview passengers. More time consuming because we have many, many more fliers than Israel. Of course the per passenger time is the same, but that means nothing when the security line has 150 people in it rather than 15.
Yes, we have completely abandoned the struggle to control our borders...
Ilya, is it not safe to assume that this supposed "non-racial" profiling you propose would, in practice, end up focusing more TSA attention on people of Arab ancestry and Muslim faith? That as a consequence more people of Arab ancestry and Muslim faith would end up questioned more probingly, and for longer, and that they would therefore end up being detained for longer periods of time, identified in the worried eyes of other passengers passing through security as possible security threats? And that they'd miss more flights?
If so, so be it!
Also much is made about Israel's hijack-free record since 1969. America only federalized it's airport security in 2001, and has been hijack-free the entire time.
Well duh!
Gedankenexperiment:
The reason our airport security is a joke is that one of the politically imposed design parameters is a refusal to acknowledge some obvious truths about the threats it's meant to guard against.
I'd like to see that change.
If Muslims then become distressed by the fact that they seem to be supplying more than their share of the "bad people" they should look inward and do something about that reality rather than blaming the messenger.
Sorry, but that seems like the standard "conservative" sissy-baiting rhetoric. The real answer has more to do with the constitution and related principles like the Blackstone ratio.
You can say that they are too expensive, that they focus on stupid things, that they make us wait too long in lines, that they infringe on our civil liberties, that it's just security theater. I could accept arguments for all of those.
However, I don't see how going to an El Al model would improve any of those complaints. It would just seem to make them worse. (Well, maybe with the exception of "focus on stupid things", like shoe bombers. But I'm sure El Al focuses on some things here and there that don't make any difference.)
Gedankenexperiment:Take out the word "Muslims" and insert the name of any other racial or religious group, anywhere, at any point in world history.
Then identify the historical episodes on your list that wouldn't make a sensible person shudder, and that didn't represent, or lead to, great mischief and human suffering.
To a gross first approximation, Israel's annual cost is (salary of competent screener)x(a few minutes)x(passengers per year) which in one way or another finds its way into higher ticket prices.
If we did the same we'd be spending (salary of competent screener)x(a few minutes)x(many more passengers passengers per year) and spreading the cost over more passengers.
This would cost a lot more than our current (Minimum wage TSA employee with no background checks)x(a few seconds)x(many more passengers passengers per year).
Having a single airport may reduce some of Israel's administrative overhead, but the basic line-personnel cost of their system is still pretty high.
So one reason they have it and we don't is that their threat level is higher. As has been pointed out above, even our current pathetic system has not been breached in the last 5 years.
I don't think we need to spend as much as the Israelis do.
I do think we could either get better security from out current budget, or keep our current level for a lot cheaper, if we stopped trying so hard to disguise the fact that threat level is strongly correlated with certain demographic and behavioral markers.
Just to be clear, I don't mean that law professors are stupid; I mean that it doesn't make sense to criticize the intelligence of the TSA when they are following the will of the chattering classes.
Then identify the historical episodes on your list that wouldn't make a sensible person shudder, and that didn't represent, or lead to, great mischief and human suffering
Italian Americans when Bobby Kennedy was cracking down on the Mafia.
White Christian Southerners when the FBI was going after the Ku Klux Klan.
Colombian Americans when the DEA is investigating cocaine trafficing.
I'm not talking about going after people for being members of a particular group. I'm talking about going after people who are real wrongdoers, and if they turn out to be disproportionately members of a particular group, living with that unfortunate fact.
How much organized crime prosecution would ever happen if we never investigated a criminal gang whose ethnic makeup didn't "look like America" because it might hurt the feelings of the group the gang members come from?
I can't tell if you support the Israeli approach of interviewing everyone (an approach I could live with, though I doubt it would work here) or racial profiling?
What would be the point of the first if the second is so effective? And why engage in the second if we are already doing the first?
America's borders are clearly established;
Israel's are not, still in flux.
That's the root of the problem, right there.
Whether or not we're willing at this time to enforce those borders, or whether we're willing to turn the other way so that employers are provided with a cheap source of labor is another entire discussion.
Still, I like America's defined-borders situation compared to Israel's more precarious one. When your country is granted as a gift, and you're still struggling this many years in to figure out what land is yours and what land is not, that's not a good place to be...
That as a consequence more people of Arab ancestry and Muslim faith would end up questioned more probingly, and for longer, and that they would therefore end up being detained for longer periods of time, identified in the worried eyes of other passengers passing through security as possible security threats? And that they'd miss more flights?
If so, so be it!
Not in America, my friend.
There's just not enough of us with long-term loyalties to Israel's survival to give up our ways to adopt theirs. Besides, overall which way has proven more successful? Police state tactics, or the citizen protections in the US Bill of Rights?
Thanks, we'll stick with what we've already honestly built up here.
They are also quite effective at preventing bear attacks on planes - - after all, no bears have attacked on a plane while they've been running things. Correlation != Causation
There hasn't been a single plot since 9/11 worth half a damn. The British liquid explosive was a nonsense and Reid would have been lucky to blow off his leg. All the objective evidence suggests that there have been no serious incidents recently for lack of attempts.
In all fairness, there is the unquantifiable effect of deterrence - we cannot possibly know how many terrorists plots were abandoned (or never conceived) because of heightened security. Given the abysmal track record of the TSA, however, it seems unlikely to be much of a deterrent.
It also fascinates me how conservative commentators always get their panties in a twist about the TSA's alleged refusal to racially profile. I fly frequently for work, am a Muslim, and get "randomly" selected just about every time.
Do I understand why? Yes.
Does it thrill me to be singled out? Yes.
Does it piss me off when Fox News/LGF et al are always decrying the alleged lack of "common sense" aka racial profiling? Yes.
What I'm mostly doing is arguing with the implicit asusmption that disparate aoutcomes are always the result of discrimination.
Given who it is that wants to blow up American airplanes and why, a well designed screening system will pretty much by definition pay more attention to Arabs, Muslims, males 20-40 years old, and the various cross terms.
Attempts not to be seen to be paying more attention to the above for fear of being accused of discrimination are guaranteed to make the system less efficient.
That can take a mild form: refusing to use racial/religious/ethnic/demographic profiling for legal and/or moral reasons even if it's statistically effective.
It can also take a much worse form: refusing to use effective individualized "bad people, not bad things" procedures such as interviews because the demographics of the "bad people" identified would be politically distressing.
The congressional system appears to be all about compromise leading to consensus in service of some constituency (with a need) that's managed by some process (with minimal accountability back on the original congressional owners).
Is this the difference between our system and other's parliaments? The accountability of a process in a parliamentary system appears to be much more direct than it is in our system of checks-and-balances. One rewards intellect-and-judgment and the other does not.
No, we'd rather live in an enforced idiot state, where oldladies are strip searched and 2 year olds are forced to take their shoes off at the airport.
Personally, I'm in favor of making everyone take of their shoes because the more spread out the pain the more likely the reform.
If it's tough for you taking off your shoes with a fracture foot, maybe the answer isn't more racial profiling here at home, but less trips to Israel?
I wonder how much those advocating profiling would like it if Israeli stamped passports were included on the list of those to be more severely questioned or scrutinized regarding their loyalties to America. Afterall, it seems that region is the cause of so much of the terrorism problems. WHy not put Jewish American sounding names on the list wonder about their loyalties to America too?
(Funny how the Nazi-style distinctions between people and corresponding police state tactics are so obviously beneficial when it's your country they're protecting via collective action. I would think most Jews would understand this, teh dangers of lumping people into "groups" based on ethnic characterizations.)
Yeah, that's how terrorism generally works. It's not so much an organized, well financed and planned strategy as it is taking your one-time, best you got shot and then hoping your enemy overreacts and inflicts internal damage much greater than the terrorists ever could have accomplished with their limited means.
Terrorism wasn't just invented by the Muslims, afterall. It's a tactic, not an ethnic property.
No, we'd rather live in an enforced idiot state, where oldladies are strip searched and 2 year olds are forced to take their shoes off at the airport.
Sure beats dumping the Constitution and making ethnic/religious distinctions between your citizens, as Israel does.
Sorry, I'm not willing to declare Israel an overall success story that we have any reason to emulate here. Heck, she can't even support herself defensively, relying on American financial aid, technology, and allies to support her internal policies, some of which are rather questionable (to put it lightly) by American standards of liberty.
Geopolitically and demographically, I'd rather be in America's position than Israel's right now. And weaning her off our tit to become independent, with all the necessary compromises and internal policy changes that becoming a true democracy entails, should be the top job for America.
Then, maybe Israel would find security emulating American ways once she's dealt with the circumstances surrounding her "founding" and the terrorism threat is lessened.
And if the threat is so minimal (which it very well may be), then switching to an El Al model is even less called for.
the way we legislate/regulate thru litigation and settlement work hard to remove judgment from day-to-day government operations.
When the next public school administration outrage-du-jour pops up (preschoooler arrested for sexual harrassment, student expelled for medically necessary prescription medication in locker, student sent to counseling for drawing G.I. Joe in notebook, etc....) you'll see this same principle in action.
It's hard to blame them, when mindlessly following the rules reduces their liability and using judgement increases it.
Me neither. But I still think they know something about airport security.
By analogy, I'm in no hurry the follow the Dutch example on euthanasia, but I think they might know something about how to keep New Orleans from flooding again.
Yeah, think of all the Zionists who have perpetrated terror attacks on the US.
A non-sequitur-- these are airport checks, not border checks.
Israel does not have a written constitution, but it has tremendous ethnic diversity. The Jewish population comes from 100 different countries, and is by no means homogeneous. Between 15 and 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs, whou are Moslem, Christian, and Druze. Arabic is an official language in Israel, and road signs are multilingual.
As for Israeli love of freedom, the country is and remains a democracy, with a broader politcal spectrum than we have, and a toleration of dissent that is at least as great.
Tell that to the 1% of Israelis who were killed by invading Arab forces after Israel proclaimed independence, and to their families.
Sorry, Gary, but I' doubt that any Israeli gives a flying f**k whether you consider their country an overall success. By most economic and political measures they are more successful than most nations. I doubt Israel needs any aid at this point, but consider that to the extent that Israel depends on the US, the US has control over Israel.
The only interesting thing about this statement is that it shows your obsession with Israel. Ending our dependence on oil, coping with global warming, rationalizing the health care system, and dealing with the challenge of rising and potentially unfriendly regimes in Russia and China (inter alia) would seem to most of us to be of greated priority to the United States than anything that has to do with Israel.
So Israel will remain safe, while we will remain in danger. But when our airplanes go flying into our buildings, at least we can sit back and know we're tolerant of Muslims. And we can say that we are, over and over again with sincere desparation, to try to convince them that they should like us and not kill any more of us.
It's OK.
We're not in any danger.
Most of the Muslim world likes us and would like to emulate us.
It's OK.
We're not in any danger.
My mom (who'd made my travel arrangements) was gratified to see all this — El Al's security system was why she'd chosen the airline in the first place, and based on what they knew of me, the (extra?) scrutiny was obviously prudent.
Could that plausibly be multiplied by the number of people flying in the US on a given day? I doubt it. And tarheel —
anyone who has flown out of Las Vegas on a Sunday morning might question how it could ever work in America
is right. Just did that (OK, it was actually 11:59 on a Saturday night, but same diff), & it was pretty nuts.
Previously, pilots were trained to yield to hijacker demands in the interest of passenger safety.
Not anymore. Now pilots faced with a hijacker will land at the nearest suitable piece of pavement, where the airplane will be immobilized, and the hijackers will be met with more or less overwhelming force, depending upon how many people they have killed.
Because of IRCDs and the new training, hijackers will never again gain control of an airplane.
The government should make this public, and just as publicly state that it will be up to the male passengers to protect the women and children on board.
Then the TSA can focus its efforts on screening for serious things: guns, and sufficient explosives to bring down an airplane.
(Note that governments should neither run airports nor the air space planes fly through -- but that's not the topic of this blog thread...)
Maybe TSA would have found the explosives, maybe not. But they clearly would not have prevented this as easily as El Al did with its very probing and clever questioning of this unfortunate and gullible young woman.
Over reliance on technology such as x-ray equipment will inevitably lead to some disasters because there is no machine that will not fail at some point. It cannot be a substitute for human intelligence and wisdom, which TSA sadly eschews.
So race-based discrimination in law school admissions is okay because it merely burdens a "relatively powerful" group, while race-based discrimination in airline security is not okay because it burdens a "relatively powerless" group. Funny, but I thought that the reason why race-based discrimination was morally wrong and, generally speaking, legally impermissible is because it fails to treat individuals as individuals by instead treating them as mere representatives of racial/ethnic groups (and ascribing stereotypical characteristics to them on that basis). In short, the harm is done to the individual, be it the Muslim airline passenger or the white law school applicant. In the former case, profiling suggests that Muslims are more likely to be terrorists than non-Muslims (demonstrably true), and in the latter, that white law school applicants are likely to be of less value in contributing to a "vibrant" law school class (almost impossible to verify, but that's the argument).
As far as I can tell, the evil is of the same type. What the commenter above suggested was that if we're going to engage in this kind of evil at all, shouldn't race-based profiling in airline security (a matter of life and death) take precedence over--or at least be seen as equally important as--race-based profiling in law school admissions?
Again, I don't think the pro-affirmative action/anti-airport profiling types (e.g., Prof. Muller) have a very good answer for these kinds of questions.
For years after 9/11 - while TSA was forcing us to take off our shoes and making mothers drink their own breast milk - they were not screening cargo _at all_. They are instituting scans on cargo now but it is not complete.
All anyone had to do to blow up a plane was to send a bomb through cargo triggered by an altimeter.
The fact that we tolerate the intrusive "security" measures makes me fear what a nation of passive sheep we have become.
If you think this is unimaginably cold of me, consider that we just shrug off some 40,000 driving deaths a year.
You know, since there aren't any women in the military or the police and none of them have martial arts training or anything. They can't because of their petticoats getting in the way . . .
US v. Montero-Camargo
US v. Brignoni-Ponce
US v. Martinez Fuerte also has a pretty good discussion of the same issue, making the point that if heightened scrutiny is based on race or ethnicity, it has to make logical sense. In that case, the court ridiculed ethnic profiling of latinos in a county that was historically 70% Hispanic lawful immigrants. It's a fair argument and as much as the 9th Circuit could be relied on to state the law accurately, would probably tend to cut against any profiling of Arabs or Muslims as a general matter, but possibly support it when the threat of hijacking or liquid bombs or shoe bombs is heightened, e.g. where there is intel to support such a judgment.
The devil would probably reside in the "narrow tailoring" details.
First eliminate the TSA entirely, and put each airline in charge of its airport security. Legislate strict liability for any security breach. Hold the CEO and other airline managers strictly liable for negligence. Thus if a terrorist get through and causes trouble, the CEO goes to jail. No excuses whatsoever. Institute a monitoring program. An independent agency (funded by a tax on plane tickets) would conduct red team tests on an ongoing basis. The results would be published on the Internet and at airports. Every ticket buyer would know how well every airline scores. Any airline that falls below a threshold would have its landing rights suspended and would be heavily fined. The monitoring agency would get a cash reward every time it penetrated security. Finally the monitoring agency itself would be audited by another independent agency also funded by a ticket tax. This second agency would reap incentive rewards for every error it caught in its audits.
L.
A non-sequitur-- these are airport checks, not border checks.
Oh, it's related.
I'm suggesting that the reason the terrorist are targeting Israel might just have something to do with the fact that her borders are still in dispute.
Israel does not have a written constitution, but it has tremendous ethnic diversity.
Ah, but it's not like America. In Israel, to put it in Kissengerian terms, some ethnicities/peoples seem rank higher than others in terms of where you can go/drive, what you can do.
Israel might self define as an "independent democracy", but in reality, they're not so independent and not so democratic at all, compared to America.
I' doubt that any Israeli gives a flying f**k whether you consider their country an overall success. By most economic and political measures they are more successful than most nations
Let's just say, for such an independent country, they sure have relied on a lot of outside special help and protections. Without which...
Me neither. But I still think they know something about airport security.
Sure it works for them. The question to focus on: would those tactics be effective in America, and would American citizens really believe the threats worth the price?
America, luckily, is not in the same boat as Israel. We shouldn't start acting like we are.
How many Muslims were targeting Jews prior to the artificial creation of the State of Israel? Remember, the Holocaust was perpetuated by teh Germans, Europeans, not the Palestinian nomads and shepherds.
And tell me their are no Israeli extremists? No, if we're going to do racial profiling, start including all MidEastern travellers, including those Jewish families who visit Israel. Suddenly, you'll have a concern for human rights and collective impact.
Not if you're talking terrorism.
The Israel/Palestinian problem is at the root of that one.
Who helped Israel in the 1948 war? In the June 1967 war Israel used French equipment. Jordan attacked Israel using American tanks. Fortunately for Israel those American tanks were junk. Meanwhile at that time Soviet aid to Arab countries, especially Egypt, was massive. In 1973 Egypt attacked Israel with more tanks (supplied by the USSR) than the Germans used in Operation Barbarossa.
Egypt has received a total of $50 billion in aid from the US since 1975. This year the Senate passed $2.3 billion in aid to Israel and $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt. Why do you resent US aid to Israel, but not to Egypt?
That being said, it is Muslims who hate us and want us dead. Not "for our freedoms" (which I'm not willing to give up to protect myself or your children), but for our interference in the middle east, support of Israel, and general non-islamic nature. Ultimately religion is the enemy, but right now in the year 2007, Islam happens to be the world's most dangerous &hostile religion.
We should be spending our money to convert people to atheism and end religion. We should also spend billions dropping porn on the middle east (sexually repressed men living in 120 degree heat with sand in their ass cracks and no air conditioning are a threat to the safety of the world). Instead, we act like religion is the answer to everything, "American Muslims" are our friends and should be supported/nurtered/protected/encouraged, and the situation in the middle east is a complex web of international politics, economics, and history.
End religion and you'll have peace in the middle east. Unfortunately, Hitler forever ruined the concept of forcefully putting people in concentration camps based on their religion. Anyone who even proposes such a solution is called a Nazi, and the idea is instantly tossed out. Just another reason to hate the Nazis. They shouldn't have committed genocide, just Korematsu-style internment. Lock up all the Muslims and re-program them until they renounce their faith or commit suicide. Then do it to Christians, Jews, etc. Muslims have to go first, though.
And then, whoever is left will live in a world of peace.
A friend's mother-in-law described her El Al screening experience to me thirty years ago, in the wake of the Munich Olympics massacre. Few would want to be questioned closely on their reasons for travel, why a particular flight/airline was chosen, etc. As free people we're used to coming and going as we please. Having one's shoes x-rayed does not require us to answer to anybody. It is neutral, impartial.
We give so much aid to Egypt as a reward for playing nicely with Israel. I thought this was common knowledge.
“How many Muslims were targeting Jews prior to the artificial creation of the State of Israel?”
If you knew anything about the history of the Middle East, you wouldn’t pose such a question. How about the 1936-1939 Arab revolt? Just in the period May-July 1938 Muslim Arabs attacked Jews all over Israel including Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Nir, Geva, Safed, Hanita, Jaffa and other places.
Let’s also remember The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni who recruited Muslims for the Waffen SS. In 1936 he instigated a wave of Arab violence against the Jews. In 1933, he
secretly met the German Consul-General Karl Wolff near the Dead Sea and expressed his approval of the anti-Jewish boycott in Germany. He did so as the elected representative of the Muslims in Palestine.
“We give so much aid to Egypt as a reward for playing nicely with Israel. I thought this was common knowledge.”
It’s only common knowledge on Planet Tutins. Here on Earth, we are don’t know that.
Nobody's suggesting that we walk up to Muslims and say "you're evil", or that we make it illegal to rent houses to Muslims, or otherwise do things to Muslims in contexts which have nothing to do with terrorism. The suggestion is that we pay attention to Muslims in situations where Muslims are particularly likely to cause damage. If you think there's some place where Americans are particularly likely to perform massacres, then go ahead and keep tabs on any Americans who go there.
Who established Israel in the first place?
Without outside help, Jews worked alone privately to create that country? Or they had special help? How many other countries were born that way and survived?
Sadly, the roots of this problem trace back, and until you deal with the roots... It's not enough to try and force "legitimacy" on your neighbors. You've got to address the future, and recognize, for example, that Jerusalem does not belong to the Jews alone.
We give so much aid to Egypt as a reward for playing nicely with Israel. I thought this was common knowledge.
I think it is. He's playing dumb to his non-selected facts.
I'm sorry, but Israel is not yet independent. Egypt quite clearly could continue to exist without American support. Not so Israel. Look beyond the aid numbers to history.
Quite a few, actually, especially considering that the Jewish population in Muslim lands was small compared to that in pre-war Europe. And how was the creation of Israel any more "artificial" than the creation of, say, Iraq?
Remember, the Holocaust was perpetuated by teh Germans, Europeans, not the Palestinian nomads and shepherds.
It was cheered and supported by a large part of the Palestinian Arab population.
Lol.
Think of it as bribe money.
Why do you think Egypt recognizes Israel's right to exist, and is one of her few neighbors to work with her?
Greasing the skids...
American taxpayer money, including those who still sending money privately to their own home countries.
I wish, like with the Cubans, America soon wises up that Israel's fight is not our own. If they want to continue building for their extremists, they should be doing it on American taxpayer dollar. That's true independence.
“… but for our interference in the middle east, support of Israel, and general non-islamic nature.”
Muslim violence is also directed against India (Kashmir), and Russia (Chechnya). Neither of these targets has anything to do with the US, Israel or the Jews. There is no desert heat and sand in Indonesia yet we saw the Muslims launch terror attacks against resorts and shopping malls.
“And then, whoever is left will live in a world of peace.”
So how come we had conflict between and among atheist states like China, USSR, Korea and Yugoslavia? Do you think China and Russia were almost at war over religious problem? Did North Korea attack the South over a religious dispute?
It was cheered and supported by a large part of the Palestinian Arab population.
That's not enough.
If it was necessary to artificially create a Jewish homeland, it should have been done in a small chunk of conquered Germany. It wasn't the Palestinian Arab population loading the ovens, which helped create the worldwide sympathy of a people's weakness that led to Israel's creation.
60 years on and that country is no more secure in the region than her people were in Europe 70 years ago. And America should be emulating Israeli policies? heh.
Right. It has neigbors like Hamas that believe it should not exist at all.
Do you really think the readers of this blog are so gullible as to believe what you imply: that if the Israel/Palestine dispute were solved-- even with the annihalation of Israel and its inhabitants-- that groups like Al Qaeda would become kissy-kissy with the United States?
So how likely would it be to have a Pakistani as prime minister of the UK? An Algerian in France? A Kurd in Sweden? I suppose they aren't democracies either. In Israel, Moslem Arabs have full rights of citizenship. Druze and Beduin serve in the armed forces. As a practical matter, they are unlikely to hold positions of power. I don't understand the relation to Kissinger. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he is a Jooo like most Israelis.
First, the creation of the state of Israel was not artificial. It actually happened, just like several other nations were created under the aegis of the UN from former League of Nations Manadates, like Syria and Lebanon.
Second, Arabs were massacring Jews in the British mandate long before 1948. In fact, they began right after Turkey gave the place up.
Remember, the Holocaust was perpetuated by teh Germans, Europeans, not the Palestinian nomads and shepherdsBut the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (admittedly not a nomad or a shepherd, but neither were most Arabs living in the British mandate) was openly pro-Nazi, and supported their goals. Fortunately (at least I think it was fortunate), he did not get to carry out his intent of liquidating the Jewish community in what is now Israel.
It's the whole Western way of life that has infected their region they object to. They see it as playing defense to cultural invaders.
We're paying an awful big price meddling abroad, for what is now not even a cheap fuel source anymore.
I wonder if China will be so inclined to support Israel, if Amercan power drops with the dollar.
Hmm.
I wonder why Hamas leaders -- those who haven't been summarily tried and executed from above along with their family members -- would think that way? Didn't Mr. Sharon's policies tough-guy teach them a thing or two?
I smell the feeling of security from here.
Egypt lost 4 wars with Israel and its USSR patron. It also got back land for making peace and recognizing Israel. On a psychological level, Egypt also felt it reclaimed its honor through the initial successes in the 1973 war. In short, Egypt had little choice in the matter. Having no prospects of getting what it wanted through war it tied peace. Of course should the opportunities permit, they can take back the peace more easily than Israel can reclaim the land. Similar story with Jordan. The other states have chosen to use asymmetric warfare, which is harder to deal with.
I don't want US airport screening policy to be based on "a concern for human rights and collective impact." I want it to be based on a concern for planes flying in US airspace not crashing into stuff or blowing up.
Wow.
You really are addicted to fear if you're sticking with the argument that the Arabs, not the German Nazis, were the main enemy even back then. I suppose it's because you won't get too far painting German civilization as backwards and in need of your reforming.
even with the annihalation of Israel and its inhabitants-- that groups like Al Qaeda would become kissy-kissy with the United States?
No. Like I think we all saw under the Sharon regime, it's no so easy to clean up after your mistakes. You don't treat an animal like that, and then expect it to come lick your hand on command.
The question to ask is Before America became complicit in supporting Israel's policies, was Al Queda attacking us for American action in the Middle East? You're a liar if you tell us you don't see the connection.
I don't want Americans give in to the fear and jettison our ways of life here. We don't want police state tactics toward some of our citizens, and we refuse to live in cages like the Israeli's seem content to do. I've got a lot of company out here too.
And yes, if we lose a plane or two every now or then but keep our American way of life, well not to be crass, but the numbers killed on 9-11 weren't really that high compared to what we're paying now. Naturally, I don't live in New York and can see why some are more fearful of paying that price to keep our liberties. But America is a big country, and not everyone sees support for Israel as a top priority.
Also, I'm not quite certain how "atheist" those communist countries actually were. Calling them "atheist" states has always been a way Americans have historically insulted them, a word Americans used to feel better about themselves. "We're people of faith, they're atheists" is merely self-congratulatory "god loves us and hates them" talk. It seems religion was quite common in soviet russia. I'm sure it's quite common in North Korea, too. Maybe one religion is more accepted than others, maybe some religions are not tolerated by the state.
But it's not like some countries were made up of people and governments completely and rationally devoid of all religion, and these countries were hostile and picked fights with America. That is a revision of history I believe is completely false.
Which means so long as economic globalization continues they're going to continue to hate us. So long as we let them come to our universities to learn engineering and as a side effect they learn about our culture we'll be disrupting theirs. Even if we embargo the entire Muslim world and the only Britney Speers videos they can get are bootlegs, their clergy will still hate us for having made them at all to tempt their youth with. The Bali bombers were quite explicit that they had a specific beef with the Australians for having helped the Christians of East Timor escape genocide at Muslim hands - so any "embargo" would have to include allowing Muslims to commit atrocities in whatever they consider to be "their" turf to avoid incurring their wrath.
The Islamic world is having trouble dealing with modernity, and parts of it are lashing out violently in response.
Even if Israel were overrun tomorrow and its people massacred, the above would still be true and the rest of the world would still have a Muslim problem.
For what it's worth, 1000 years ago Christians were the uncivilized cave-dwelling terrorists (read: Crusades) while Muslim society was quite advanced and intellectual (math, science). I'm not claming one group of people is intrinsically better than another. All religion is terrible, and when the world eventually ends in nuclear or biological destruction, it will be due to religion.
He's not saying that they were the main enemies, just that they were enemies, in contradiction to your claim otherwise.
I suppose it's because you won't get too far painting German civilization as backwards and in need of your reforming.
It was backwards, it did need reforming, and in case you've forgotten we occupied the place for a while to make sure the reforms happened.
He thought some human lives were inherently worth more than others. See Indochina, much like today many Israelis view the Palestinians/Arabs as lesser humans.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he is a Jooo like most Israelis.
And please, don't call yourself names. Next thing you know, you'll be drawing swastikas on your own doors, looking for sympathy. Cmon, be a big boy, maybe even a man, and put your childish self-hating namecalling aside?
I thought the question on the table is: How do we fix airport security?
Most of Gary Anderson's comments seem to be centered on the notion that Israel's existence creates the security threat, because its existence inflames Muslims. Elminate Israel, I suppose, and then the threat will be gone.
Is this empirically true? In other words, is it true that, absent Israel, airport terrorists would disappear?
Let's look at the data: Richard Reid wanted to bomb an airplane recently post 9/11. He stated his complaint plainly at his sentencing: "I further admit my allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah. With regards to what you said about killing innocent people, I will say one thing. Your government has killed 2 million children in Iraq. If you want to think about something, against 2 million, I don't see no comparison.
Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons. I don't know, see what I done as being equal to rape and to torture, or to the deaths of the two million children in Iraq."
So, let's see: complaints about Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Jordan were Reid's first, most important complaints.
Israel existing or not existing would be irrelevant to those issues. Further, it's not even in his list of top 5 issues.
2003 May 1st. - Jordan, Amman, Queen Alia International Airport: When a security officer examined a suspicious piece of metal in the baggage of a passenger bound for Cairo on an Egypt Air flight, the device exploded. The luggage belonged to a journalist named Hiroki Gomi, working for the Japanese newspaper Mainichi. He had taken the object and other artifacts as war souvenirs from Baghdad, but was unaware of its explosive character. One airport security employee was killed and three others injured.
Perhaps Mr. Anderson can elucidate, but Israel's existence (or non-existence) seems irrelevant here.
It wouldn't take much effort to look into other hijackings and attempts. A common thread currently are individuals from Muslim countries and travel to those countries. Israel? Not so much.
It's funny, isn't it, how, to some, Jews keep their odd prominence as the number one problem...
We'll just have to wait and see, eh? ;-)
just that they were enemies, in contradiction to your claim otherwise.
Insignificant enemies in the course of that War. I think you're getting your enemies confused in your heads. No ovens in Palestine, no matter how much you seem to wish there were...
Me: It was cheered and supported by a large part of the Palestinian Arab population.
Gary: That's not enough
Not enough for what? You argued that Muslims were not attacking Jews before 1948. MDJD2B, Zarkov, and I have all pointed out the ignorance of that statement.
Further, no one is claiming that the Grand Mufti was the main threat to European Jews. But he was certainly a threat to Jews living in the British Mandate.
Israel's are not, still in flux.
Wrong on both counts. A border that is not enforced is meaningless, not "clearly established".
I'm suggesting that the reason the terrorist are targeting Israel might just have something to do with the fact that her borders are still in dispute.
It is the existence of Israel that is disputed, not its borders. There is no border that will make the Arab problem go away, and achieve "peace".
Who helped Israel in the 1948 war?
The Soviet Union (via their Czech proxies)! At Soviet direction, Czechoslovakia provided $22 million in arms (in $1948) to Israel in 1948, including 50,000 rifles, 6,000 machine guns, 90 million rounds of ammunition, and Supermarine Spitfire and Avia S-199 fighter aircraft. Czech arms played a crucial role in securing air superiority over Israel and halting Arab ground advances in 1948.
Less well known is the demographic boost. To strengthen Israel, the Soviets transferred Jews from Soviet-occupied territories to Poland, fully expecting them to emigrate to Israel. The Soviets instructed Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary to permit Jewish emigration. From 1948 to 1951, over 302,000 Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe to Israel. Israel’s Jewish population was only 806,000 in 1948, so this was a very significant increase.
Reid, the guy who almost endangered himself blowing off his leg? My, my your fears do find credible terror threats everywhere, eh?
I'm all for Israel's right to exist. But independently. Her own actions endanger her people far more than she'd care to admit. And America as a whole shouldn't continue to be caught up in that mess. Geopolitically, we're safe maintaining our own borders, even acknowledging 9-11 and the open one with Mexico. That money could be much better spend here helping secure Americans, not Israelis.
Sorry, but I think many Americans think similarly.
OK, leaving the world of "coulda-shoulda-woulda" and entering the world of "How do we fix the mess we're in now," say we were to take your advice and terminate all aid to Israel, terminate all trade agreements except for multiparty trade regimes we're both members of, and basically treat Israel about as nicely as we treat, say, Venezuala:
About how long would we have to wait before Arabs and/or Muslims stop trying to kill us?
Don't try to bring America down to pull Israel up. American land is not being contested anymore; we fought our own fights, won them, and moved on to live with our neighbors in relative security. Independently.
See, you can't expect others to buy or pay the price for your security. How much longer until you figure that out? How long will you continue to suckle the teat?
Again, it's not that easy to undo your own self-imposed deadly mistakes. In retrospect, you should have tried to hold onto the lands won in '67.
And I think we can all admit by now that Dozer Sharon was a disaster. You got yourself into this mess via those policies, and now you've got yourself an enemy calling for your total destruction. You want a quick fix out of that one? A military solution to provide elusive security?
Good luck on that one. It's a cliche really, but applies based on the law of consequences and accountability (true there's no word for accountability in the Hebrew language/) "Sucks to be you."
I’m not sure I understand you. All I’m saying is that I have trouble with all-encompassing theories about human behavior because we have so many counter examples.
I think it’s fair to call the USSR an atheist state. The communists pretty much eliminated institutional religion. The state and the school system were officially atheist. Poland of course is another case. But despite their overall lack of religion, the communist countries were aggressive, violent and dangerous.
I don’t think we can even reduce human conflict by eliminating religion. At the risk of presenting my own grand theory of human behavior, I think humans (like our chimpanzee cousins) are genetically programmed for conflict and violence. If anything modern nation states have actually reduced violence compared to tribes, bands and chiefdoms. Pre state people engaged in violent behavior far more frequently than civilized people. In fact the violence within and among hunter-gatherers was savage and continuous. The good news is humans continue to evolve towards a less violent species.
Not enough to justify establishing the Jewish homeland in Arab Palestine, instead of carving out a chunk of conquered Germany. Europe was only to happy to have the Arabs pay the price for their sins, and you see the consequences today.
The Arabs fought the Allies, both in the Middle East (Iraq in particular) and otherwise, after Haj Amin al Husseini, the Graqnd Mufti, raised Muslim SS battalions in the Balkan Muslim community, for his friend and benefactor Adolf Hitler. As others have noted, Arabs were attacking Jews long before the creation of Israel. Read a book by Joan Peters, entitled "From Times Immemorial."
But could this timing have had anything to do with the fact that in the first half of the 20th century, the Arabs lacked the power to be more effective, until they became Soviet clients and got their hands on some modern weaponry and serious oil money? Note that in the 1948 war the British were actively on the side of the Arabs (the British-led and financed Arab Legion under Sir John Glubb, and the British Spitfires flown for the Arabs in 1967). The US was scrupulously neutral, forbidding export of weapons to Israel. The Israelis in the 1948 war had to rely on the Eastern Bloc (notably Czechoslovakia) for weapons. Later it was France, until De Gaulle figured out that there were more Arabs than Jews.
This is a very long drama, and Gary does not appear to understand that he walked in in the middle of the umpteenth act. Also, he still offers no explanation why toward the end of the 20th century Arabs and Muslims turned on the Brits, the Spaniards, the Indians, the Australians, and other non-Muslim people in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. How is all that Isreal's fault?
Finally, Gary, being an American and this being basically a legal blog, you should read the Supreme Court's opinion in Johnson v. M'Intosh and learn what the US law is on the point of the rights of conquerors. So who is any American to lecture others in such matters?
You misunderstand where I'm coming from. I'm an American citizen, my foreign policy views tend to pulled back and forth between "isolationism" and "whatever's good for trade," and I'm involved in a discussion about US airport security in which you seem to be saying "Want secure airports in the US? Ditch Israel and the Arabs and/or Muslims will stop trying to kill you."
And my question in response, which I think is perfectly justified from a practical point of view, is "About how long will it take from when we ditch Israel to when we see a perceptibly reduced frequency of Arabs and/or Muslims trying to kill us?"
"Arab Palestine"??? Allow me to remind you that before the 1950s "Palestinian" meant Jewish and "Palestine"