A new
report alleges that Israeli security officials are being given a free hand by
airports around the world to use racial profiling against Arab passengers, in
violation of international law and the host countries' domestic legislation.
Israeli
media have for several years reported on suspicions that non-Jews, including
Israel's more than one million Arab citizens, are being routinely subjected to
lengthy interrogations, bag checks and invasive body searches at Israeli
airports and land crossings.
The
report, Suspected Citizens, collects for the first time personal testimony from
Arab citizens to support claims of discriminatory and humiliating treatment by
Israeli staff at Israeli airports.
Published jointly by two Israeli human rights groups - the Nazareth-based Arab
Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism - the report also
highlights the use by Israeli officials of the same profiling techniques against
Arab passengers at foreign airports, often out of sight of the local
authorities.
Most
international airports have agreements with Israel's national carrier, El Al,
allowing it to carry out security checks in addition to the standard checks made
by local airport staff on passengers taking Israeli flights.
Profiling techniques
According to the report's author, Tarek Ibrahim, a lawyer, El Al's activities
are unmonitored, allowing them to screen passengers using illegal profiling
techniques.
The
report also suggests that the procedures are actually overseen by Israel's
secret security agency, the Shin Bet.
"The
countries in which these [Israeli security] investigations take place do not
supervise them, and prefer to ignore their discriminatory nature and the human
rights violations committed on their own soil," the report states.
Technological advances have made the need for interrogations and strip searches
largely unnecessary, argues the report, but Israeli security staff continue to
use humiliating inspections against Arab passengers, including its own
non-Jewish citizens.
According to the report, the lengthy and degrading interrogations of Israel's
own Arab citizens are designed not to ensure the safety of passengers - their
ostensible purpose - but to gather intelligence information about Arab
passengers to help monitor their activities.
Mohammed Zeidan, director of the Association for Human Rights, said the report
had been handed to the Israeli prime minister's office, the airports authority
and the government ombudsman, the state comptroller.
So far
only the comptroller has agreed to meet the human rights organisations to
discuss their findings.
Airports authority's account
In
response, the Israeli airports authority stated that it "treats all passengers
with respect, and rejects claims of inappropriate or discriminatory treatment of
the Arab population ... We regret that steps are occasionally taken that cause
discomfort. These steps are taken to assure the safety of millions of
passengers".
But
Arab citizens, says the report, "are collectively, and almost automatically,
subject to security inspection that is not imposed on Jewish passengers, and is
based on a security perception that persistently views them as a threat".
The
report points out that the number of Arab citizens involved in any security
offences against the state in all fields, and not just aviation, has been
minuscule over many decades.
According to the report, Israeli security staff identifies most Arab passengers
through clothing, appearance or accent, or through questions about their name or
where they live. If there is doubt, passengers are asked to show their Israeli
ID card, which is believed to reveal their ethnicity in coding.
Once
identified, Arab passengers' luggage and passports are marked with specially
colour-coded labels.
The
questioning at foreign airports usually cover topics unrelated to the safety of
the flight, such as where the traveller slept, what places he or she visited,
whom they met, and who paid for the ticket. Arab passengers are also expected to
provide receipts and documents to substantiate their replies.
Personal accounts
Fairuz
Nasrallah, a nurse, says she was recently stopped by Israeli officials at
Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and subjected to lengthy interrogation and a
strip search after her name was revealed - she shares a common last name with
the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah.
"The
whole time I tried to complain about their offensive attitude, but the security
guards kept telling me that these were their orders and that if I chose to
travel with El Al, I had to bear the consequences."
As well
as exhaustive luggage searches, Arab travellers are often taken to side rooms
where they are made to strip before being subjected to a body search.
Ibtisam
Maranah, a film director who represented Israel at an international film
festival in the Netherlands in 2005 along with several Jewish colleagues,
reports that Israeli staff took her off alone to an underground section of the
Dutch airport, away from the rest of her group and local airport staff, where
she was made to undress.
"They
were searching me underground, out of sight. Someone who has not undergone this
kind of search can't imagine how humiliating it is. You aren't worth anything in
this situation. At the time I thought about the Palestinians who go through the
checkpoints every day - I thought about the daily searches and humiliation."
Maranah
has refused to travel since, despite several invitations to film festivals in
the US. "I considered handing in my passport and identity card - what meaning
does citizenship have if it makes me a victim of this kind of treatment?"
Free
hand
The
Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism wrote to El Al and
four international airports - JFK New York, Paris, Vienna and Geneva - where
testimonies from passengers showed that they had been subjected to
discriminatory and humiliating treatment.
El Al,
as well as the New York and Paris airports, refused to comment on their joint
security arrangements.
Vienna
airport said it had no influence over El Al's security procedures, while Geneva
claimed it was not possible to oversee El Al's work.
"It is
remarkable that these countries make no effort to supervise the actions of
Israeli security personnel present on their territory, particularly in light of
the discriminatory and humiliating procedures they apply," writes Ibrahim.
The
report cites a case from June 2006 in which the Shin Bet security service
ordered Kiryat Shemona airport in northern Israel to allow only Jews to board
its flights. According to reports in the Hebrew media, the decision was made to
ban Arab passengers because the baggage scanner was broken.
"This
clearly indicates that a discriminatory and racist approach on the grounds of
nationality forms the foundation of the procedures used in the airports," the
report says.
Investigation opened
After
criticism of its security policies, Israel's airports authority agreed in April
to set up a "working team" to investigate ways to improve the treatment of Arab
passengers.
An
attempt to improve the image of airport security by hiring a handful of Arab
guards was initiated in September 2003 but failed to affect the overall policy.
An
official committee to investigate the methods used for inspecting Arab
passengers was established in 2005 but its conclusions were never made public.
In
light of the Suspected Citizens report, Machsom Watch, a group of Israeli women
who monitor soldiers' behaviour at checkpoints in the West Bank, asked the
airports authority for permission to oversee security checks on Arab citizens at
Israel's main airport, Ben Gurion.
"I
think it would be enough for us to work in conjunction with the security staff
and to aid their training. This could prevent great suffering experienced by
passengers," Maya Bailey, one of the organisation's senior activists, told the
local press.
