Comment & Debate
Mark Thompson. “Profiling, Political Correctness, and Airport Security.” The League of Ordinary Gentleman. November 29th, 2010: “None of this is to pretend that the Israeli system is race, ethnicity, or religion-neutral. However, it must be emphasized that the Israeli constitution is different from our constitution, and that the threats Israel faces from terrorism are both greater and different in nature than the threats we face. The constitutional differences and greater size of the threats faced by Israel make it difficult for Americans to fairly evaluate the propriety of relying heavily on race, ethnicity, or religion in profiling, while the differences in nature of the threats make profiling on such grounds more effective for Israelis. By “differences in nature” I’m referring to the fact that Israel’s terrorists are almost entirely drawn from a well-organized set of local – if internationally funded – groups drawn from a particular subset of the population, while anti-American terrorists are drawn from a poorly organized coalition of groups with members around the globe.”