The September 11 attacks by extremist Muslim airline hijackers has renewed the debate about ethnic profiling the screening by law enforcement officials of potential criminals by their racial backgrounds.
Civil libertarians call profiling racist and unproductive.
In Israel, with its history of grappling with terrorism, the singling out of Arabs for security checks is a regular practice. Dear Rabbi Ascherman, If profiling and questioning suspicious men of Middle Eastern descent had been conducted properly at Logan airport, over 6,000 people would not have been killed, and New York City would still have the Twin Towers proudly erect today, with tens of thousands of workers and tourists visiting the place daily. If El Al's screeners would not have carefully been on watch for potential Arab hijackers these past 30 years, Israel would likely have had thousands of casualties due to air piracy and bombing, no tourism and a much weaker economy. There is a logic to ethnic profiling, more properly designated as anti-terrorism profiling. It goes without saying that such profiling is discriminatory, undemocratic, and that it constitutes an affront to civil rights and liberties.