New York Airport 'Blind' to El Al Racial Profiling

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Two Israeli Arab brothers have won $8,000 in damages from Israel's national carrier, El Al, after a court found that their treatment by the company’s security staff at a New York airport had been 'abusive and unnecessary'.

Abdel Wahab and Abdel Aziz Shalabi were assigned a female security guard who watched over them at the airport’s departure gate for nearly two hours, in full view of hundreds of fellow passengers, after they had passed the security and baggage checks.

Later, El Al’s head of security threatened to bar Abdel Wahab, 43, from the flight if he did not apologise to the guard for going to the toilet without first getting her approval. Abdel Aziz said he had been humiliated and “cried like I’ve never cried before in public”.

Although surveys of Arab citizens, who comprise one-fifth of Israel’s population, show that most have suffered degrading treatment when flying with Israeli carriers, few bring cases to the Israeli courts.

The brothers are now planning to sue El Al and its New York staff in the United States over Israel’s racial profiling of passengers in a country where the practice is illegal.

"I’d rather go to New York by donkey than fly with El Al again," said Abdel Aziz, 44. "We will keep fighting this case until Israel is embarrassed into stopping its policy of discriminating against its Arab citizens."

more

[Chulanowa]

1. "until Israel is embarrassed into stopping its policy of discriminating against its Arab citizens"

Fuck, that means we're going into Geologic time. The levant will be subsumed in the Red Sea Rift before Israel ever feels embarrassed about that sort of thing.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Chulanowa]

3. Oh, oh, the Arabs

Sorry, I thought you said "TEH JOOZ! TEH JOOZ!" and was confused for a moment.

"TEH AYRABZ!" makes much more sense coming from you.

I got a little worried, was gonna have you check yourself for a fever.

[oberliner]

6. What does "teh jooz" and "teh ayrabz" mean?

I do not understand this post - can you clarify the meaning of it?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

7. No coffee yet this morning Oberliner? Don't tell us you support this kind of racial profiling?

[oberliner]

8. I am trying to figure out what those phrases mean

I don't understand whatever rhetorical point was being made there.

[Chulanowa]

11. Do you know a lick of anything about antisemitism, Oberliner?

If so, you've no doubt run across some information on people who believe in the International Jewish Conspiracy, that all Jews are in cahoots to overthrow "the west" and institute a living hell of foreskin-snipping, salmon-eating, dredle-spinning Mosaic marxism or something (honestly, I'm just guessing)

Mockery of these sorts often hinges on their frequent use of the phrase, "The Jews." The Jews control the banks. The Jews run the media. The Jews are flouridating our water. The Jews, the Jews, the Jews. In satire it is expressed as "TEH JOOZ!" with a suitably alarmed expression and faux-panicky handwaving.

Our Friend Proteus (Well, your friend, I don't think too highly of him) is engaging in the same sort of brainless, broad-brushing, ethnically-based paranoia. The Arabs are out to get us. We need to keep The Arabs off of planes. The Arabs are evil. The Arabs must be stopped. The Arabs, the Arabs, the Arabs.

TEH AYRABZ! - insert alarmed expression and hand-jitters.

[proteus_lives]

14. How sad.

You don't think too highly of me.

Do I not read the right anti-Israel pamphlets or follow the right mindless propaganda?

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

I guess paying attention to 60+ years of history is "ethnically-based paranoia".

[Chulanowa]

21. Just to recap

El Al forced Israeli citizens to be under armed guard, to the point where they had to beg permission to use the bathroom, for no reason other than they were Arabs.

You are clearly in support of this.

Now, I don't really care what your rationale for this support is, it's irrelevant. This treatment of Israeli citizens is racist, it's discriminatory, it's offensive, and it is wrong-headed. Your support of it makes you all those things, as well.

[oberliner]

20. Apparently not! I've never encountered those phrases before anywhere that I can recall

I have of course heard of those paranoid antisemitic conspiracy theories - but I've never seen that odd terminology that you employed in your post.

I do appreciate your explanation, however, and I now get the point you were making. Thanks!

[Violet_Crumble]

23. You've never encountered the phrase 'The Jooos' in this forum before?

If that's what yr saying, I don't believe you at all. There's two 'supporters' of Israel in particular who use those terms constantly, and one only just used it in a recent thread where you were posting in the same part of the thread, yet you didn't ask them what it meant even though not long after you appear here asking what it means.

[oberliner]

25. The phrases I did not recognize where "teh jooz" and "teh ayrabz"

What the heck is "teh" ? That still has not been made clear.

[Violet_Crumble]

26. Jimbo and proteus use the jooz all the time...

Like I said, Jimbo used it only recently in a thread you were in and you didn't ask him what it meant.

As for claiming not to understand what 'teh' is. Hopefully this will help you out...

[oberliner]

30. Who is Jimbo?

I don't know any poster with that name.

[Violet_Crumble]

31. Work it out for yrself, Obie. It's not rocket science...

Maybe you have that poster on ignore? It's the only way you could have missed them using teh term 'the joooz' on a regular basis, and he's not the only 'supporter' of Israel to have done it in the recent past. Which is why you claiming never to have seen it before came across as quite strange...

[oberliner]

32. Is the deliberate misspelling of "the" similar to the deliberate misspelling of "your"?

I don't understand why one would write "teh" in lieu of "the" on purpose. Is there some kind of rhetorical point to that? Is it related to the "yr" vs. "your" thing that you do?

[Violet_Crumble]

33. It's teh really important stuff that keeps you asking questions, I see...

I did notice that even though one 'supporter' of Israel in this thread made a very nasty bigoted comment about Arabs, you chose to ignore it and didn't speak out against it or ask them why they'd say something so ugly, even though if it had been about Jews rather than Arabs you'd have been all over it. Guess it's just not as important as pretending that you'd never seen the term 'teh Joooz' before, hey? ;)

[oberliner]

34. I honestly hadn't seen those terms and didn't get the whole parody/satire

I appreciate that the poster who responded took the time to provide an explanation.

[Violet_Crumble]

35. I find that very hard to believe, seeing there's a very recent thread you were in where they're used

I would have thought even people who give threads they post in a cursory glance before posting would have noticed them. Then again, you appear to have totally missed the bigoted comment about Arabs that was made at the start of this thread. Either that or you just didn't think it was worth speaking up about the way you always speak up about bigotry if it's aimed at Jews...

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. you can knock it off with the racist bullshit right now!!

[proteus_lives]

5. Yeah, racism.

:eyes:

Way to deflect.

[Tripmann]

9. Sorry proteus_lives,

but to generalise against a race of people based on the actions of a few is the very essence of racism.

I'm sure if somebody was on here trying to justify hamas executing collaborators by saying they're 'defending themselves from jews' you would consider the comment anti-semitic. Well it works both ways.

From the rules on this section of the board:

Do not make over-sweeping or stereotypical generalizations of any group or individual. This includes making statements, either overtly or subtly, which are Anti-Semitic or Anti-Muslim.

You also have just disregarded this rule in another thread where you accuse 'huge swathes' of the world of hating jews, simply because an opinion poll suggests only 19% of the world sees Israel in a favourable light.

[Violet_Crumble]

24. What you said about Arabs was ugly and bigoted...

Why do people like you think it's just fine to make nasty stereotypes against Arabs, but if similar things were to be said about Jews, you and one other poster in this thread who's incredibly sensitive to any hint of antisemitism but consistantly silent when it comes to bigoted comments about Arabs/Muslims would be all over it objecting to it because it's bigoted? Bigotry against any group of people is totally unacceptable and I don't know why you think it's okay to be bigoted like that against people if they're Arabs.

[Chulanowa]

12. No he can't

I suspect he's physically unable to knock it off

[proteus_lives]

15. We know you are.

[shaayecanaan]

19. but what am I?

ah, Peewee's playhouse, man that shit takes me back.

[azurnoir]

10. These "Arabs" are Israeli citizens

not Palestinians, would you endorse the profiling of Americans Blacks in a similar manner based on the underwear bomber?

[proteus_lives]

13. Based on one incident? No.

That wouldn't be right.

If a American Black terror groups had been commiting bombings, rocket attacks and shooting for decades against other people in the U.S.? Yes, then I would.

[azurnoir]

16. so an Israeli Arab group has been attacking Israel? n.t

[Vegasaurus]

17. It's safer to fly on El Al than any other airline in the world. nt

[shaayecanaan]

18. Actually, statistically, its safer to fly Qantas, then Finnair, then Cathay Pacific

I don't know of any respectable authority that considers El Al to be the safest airline in the world.

[Violet_Crumble]

27. I think Veggie pulled her stats from the 2009 Veggie Hearts Everything Israel Factbook

When it comes to the real world, being the sort of flier who turns into a gibbering mass of terror-filled nerves hours before my flight is due to leave, I obsess over things like safety stats and the only thing that gets me on that plane for work is the knowledge that despite a few little maintenance issues lately, Qantas still has the best safety record in the world. Someone like me who's convinced that if I take my eyes off the moving map for just one second, the pilot will lose control and an up and coming starlet will play me in a reconstruction scene on Air Crash Investigations, is most definately not going to fly El-Al, not after the way those engines fell off a 747 over Amsterdam.

[LeftishBrit]

28. Getting off topic, but I'm reminded here of the episode in Rain Man...

where Raymond is unhappy about using any airline except Qantas, because Quantas has never had a fatal accident. Unfortunately, as Charlie points out, Qantas is not much use for flying from Ohio to Los Angeles.

[Chulanowa]

22. Unless you're an Israeli citizen of the wrong race, apparently

Glad you could chime in, Veggy, Proteus was looking a little lonesome.

[LeftishBrit]

29. Glad they won some damages.