Ethnic profiling in Israel
Systematic racial profiling by Israeli security forces across multiple contexts.
Ethnic profiling in Israel refers to the systematic practice by Israeli security forces of targeting individuals based on perceived racial or ethnic characteristics rather than individual suspicion. This approach has been described as integral to the Israeli security apparatus and is applied in various contexts, including airport screening and military governance.
Quick Facts
- First airport profiling protocols
- 1968
- Roni alsheikh statement
- 2016
Facts from the source article.
Historical background
After the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Israel chose to maintain military rule over Palestinian areas, building on a permit system inherited from Mandatory Palestine. However, military law was suspended only in mixed cities with a Jewish presence, while elsewhere it was used to depopulate Arab villages, prevent Palestinian return, and assist Jewish settlement. This permit system, enforced by the military, has been described as creating a culture of racial profiling that criminalized the Palestinian public.
At Ben Gurion Airport
Following the 1968 hijacking of an El Al plane, Israel introduced profiling protocols for airport passenger screening that remain in use. Security at Ben Gurion Airport emphasizes the human factor, as former security director Raphael Ron noted that terrorist attacks are carried out by people who can be found and stopped. Officers interrogate travelers using racial profiling, singling out those appearing Arab by name or appearance, while all passengers face general questions to check for inconsistencies. By 2007, no known empirical studies on the technique's efficacy had been undertaken. In 2008, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz directed the airport authority to implement visible equality, ending the use of colored stickers, though officials reportedly replaced them with a numbering system that preserved distinctions.
In other contexts
Beyond airport security, ethnic profiling is used extensively in the military governance of Palestinian territories, where profiling has been called its methodological procedure. The range of control and monitoring techniques has led Ilan Pappé to describe Israel as a Mukhabarat state, an intelligence surveillance state. In August 2017, Haaretz reported that security guards at Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station were instructed to demand ID from people who look Arab. In 2016, Israel Police head Roni Alsheikh stated that migrants and Arabs are more involved in crime than others. Canadian scholars have noted that Israel markets itself as a global expert in combating Islamic or Arab terrorism, despite attacks like the 2011 Oslo and Utoya massacre defying racial profiling's efficacy.
Emulation in other countries
After 9/11, several countries adopted Israeli security profiling techniques, which are widely regarded as effective in preventing airplane hijacking or bombing. Critics describe this as an Israelization of surveillance and a Palestinianization of racial contracts. Israeli-style profiling began in the U.S. when Boston's Logan Airport hired the former director of security at Ben Gurion Airport. Dave McIntyre noted that the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security pledged to adopt Israeli techniques. Figures such as Mike Huckabee, Allen West, and Donald Trump have advocated for the adoption of Israeli profiling methods, including racial profiling, by the Transportation Security Administration.
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