An editorial in the Washington Post criticized Donald Trump’s call for “racial profiling” of suspected terrorists in the U.S., but defended Israel even though Israeli officials openly admit they rely on racial profiling.
In an interview Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Trump said profiling was “something that we’re going to have to start thinking about as a country.” He referred to Israel’s own similar policies, particularly in airports, and said “we have to start using common sense.”
The Post on Monday night criticized the Republican nominee’s proposal as “poisonous.” Trump’s remarks were a response to an Islamic extremism-inspired terrorist who shot up a nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The Post also dismissed Trump’s reference to Israel’s own racial profiling because “the Israeli airline screening system, for one, relies heavily on behavioral observation by trained agents. The Transportation Security Administration’s behavioral detection officers perform a similar role, if less intensely.”
Israeli officials, however, openly acknowledge that their policing relies on racial profiling.
“It is not the whole population, but sometimes when there is a specific form of terrorism, you can seek out Islamic terrorism only among Muslims,” Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katzread told Reuters on Monday.
In 2010, Lt. Col. Eran Tuval, an Israeli military official, told the Israeli news agency Haaretz that racial profiling allows for the average airline passenger to board airplanes at Ben-Gurion International Airport with household items that would not be allowed in the U.S. by the TSA.
“Oh, that’s simple,” Tuval said when asked about the discrepancy. “We use racial profiling, they don’t.”
