Israel Matzav: Good news: TSA to fight 'discrimination' against Muslims

Good news: TSA to fight 'discrimination' against Muslims

The Obama administration has appointed Nawar Shora, legal director of the Arab-American Anti-Defamation Committee (ADC), to serve as a senior adviser for the TSA's office of civil rights and civil liberties. TSA - for those of you who aren't frequent travelers - are the people who are supposed to protect airline passengers within and departing from the United States. Paul Mirengoff reports that the ADC has a number of positions on protecting the US from attack that might be advocated by Nawar Shora.

For example, it has been a fierce critic of the Patriot Act since day one. And ADC failed Scott's "Al Arian test" when it claimed that the indictment of Professor Sami Al Arian was "a political witch-hunt, a vendetta, and a kind of very, very ugly post-9/11 McCarthyism." Al Arian eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a specially designated terrorist organization.

The Washington Post, in what I would describe as a celebratory article, is very clear about what Shora's role will be at TSA. It states (under his picture in an article appearing today) that Shora "is used to fighting for the civil rights of Muslims and Arabs, but now he will do so as a federal government official." Shora is equally clear, saying "it is about time I cross over to the government and start working within the system."

But TSA is not a civil rights organization; it is (or should be) an organization dedicated to promoting safety and thwarting terrorism. Shora's appointment is more evidence that TSA is not sufficiently dedicated to that purpose. Shora's mission in life is not promoting safety and thwarting terrorism; it is promoting the interests of Arab-Americans by, for example, making sure they are treated the same way other Americans are.

I have advocated many times on this blog that other countries adopt Israel's security system in which personal interviews are used to ferret out potential terrorists. Instead, American travelers will continue to be subjected to useless, demeaning searches that ignore the elephant in the room: The fact that all airline terrorism in the last thirty years has been committed by Muslims.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, El Al Israel Airlines (which does its own security abroad as well) has been voted best in airline security by World Traveler Magazine readers for the third year running (since the award category was created) (Hat Tip: Israellycool via Twitter). But don't expect that kind of security to be implemented in the US anytime soon. It's far more important to pretend that we don't know the terrorists' origins.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Good news: TSA to fight 'discrimination' against Muslims