High Court Waffles on Racial Profiling

The sensitive issue of racial profiling by security forces was brought before Israel’s High Court on Wednesday, but no clear-cut ruling was handed down.

In a case involving treatment of minorities by security personnel at Ben-Gurion Airport, the judges rejected a petition to abolish profiling, on the grounds that it would unduly harm the traveling public. But they did so on a procedural issue, leaving the way open for another petition in the future, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The court ordered that the petitioners, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), be reimbursed NIS 30,000 for their legal fees and recognized that their efforts had prompted a less discriminatory approach at the airport.

At a November 2013 hearing, ACRI told the court that since the petition was filed in 2007, security at the airport has continued to subject Israeli Arabs to humiliating searches.

While security experts from various countries, including the U.S., have come to Israel to study its superior security methods — in large part due to reliance on profiling — protests over the practice have continued.

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the March 12th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.