High Court greenlights racial profiling at Israel’s airports

By Edo Konrad March 11, 2015 | Edit

High Court rejects petition calling for an end to racial profiling against Arabs at Ben-Gurion Airport, yet refuses to make a principled ruling on the policy as a whole.

Passengers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport (Photo by ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com)

Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected a petition by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), demanding an end to racial profiling at Ben-Gurion Airport on Wednesday.

The petition — which the Association for Civil Rights in Israel filed in 2007 against the Shin Bet, the Transportation Ministry and the Israel Airports Authority — sought to eliminate the category of “Arab nationality” as a criteria for conducting special security checks in the airport. The petition described how Arab passengers often undergo humiliating treatment, including extra searches and questioning that are not applied to Jewish passengers, and called for all passengers to be subjected to the same security criteria, regardless of nationality.

Although Ben-Gurion Airport has made changes to its security policy in the years since the petition was filed – including the installment of an automated system to check all passenger luggage that replaced the public checks that often took place in the ticketing area — ACRI claimed that the new system only sweeps the policy of racial profiling under the rug.

And while the High Court’s decision does not make any principled ruling on the issue of racial profiling in Israeli airports, its rejection of ACRI’s petition and refusal to touch on the basic issue of whether Jews and Arabs should be treated equally in Israel’s airports provides a rubber stamp for the government’s discriminatory policy. According to the High Court:

“We must wait and see whether the significant changes that have been implemented will truly help and decrease the differentiation between Israeli citizens of different groups for the purpose of security checks in Israeli airports.”

The court further stated that ACRI will be able to re-submit the petition should the result of the airport’s changes fail to bring about the “desired outcome.” The court will reimburse the civil rights organization for court fees, as a goodwill gesture for its contribution to bringing about changes in airport security checks.

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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