Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Color of the skin: can you imagine if this was about an Arab airport?

" “Israeli agents focus on the travelers’ country of origin, their profession, visas that are stamped in their passports, places they have visited, people they know and the color of their skin...“My experience leaving Tel Aviv was by far and away the most unpleasant encounter I’ve ever had with airport security officials in the decade,” said Matthew Yglesias, a blogger with the Center for American Progress who said it took three hours last month for him to get from the initial security check at Ben-Gurion to the food court. “As best I could tell, things went pretty smoothly as long as you were Israeli, traveling with an Israeli, or traveling with some kind of well-established tour group.”  Mr. Yglesias was traveling with a group of journalists.  “The African-American woman in our group was taken off to be questioned. A bunch of us were told we couldn’t bring iPads on the plane,” he said. The Jewish member of his group “had the easiest time,” he said. “The black woman had the hardest time.”"