Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Cause for complaint

According to The Economist, a report by the Arab Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism has accused airport staff at Ben-Gurion Airport of discriminating against Arabs.

I'm very happy to see that Arab organisations are taking an interest in human rights and racism. Maybe I should contact them, to tell them about an experience I had recently. I met with an employment agent to discuss job opportunities, and he started to excitedly tell me about a very lucrative position in Bahrain. Then he suddenly stopped, probably having noticed my yarmulke, and said, "Sorry, I've just realised that wouldn't really work, now, would it?" Because of course anyone with an Israeli passport, or even just a stamp of entry into Israel, would be denied entry into most Arab countries. How's that for discrimination? A bit stronger than so-called harassment by airport security, I would have thought. (And as anyone who has been to Israel can attest, airport security is pretty stringent for everybody, Arab, Jew, Gentile, it doesn't matter.)

So maybe this Centre Against Racism could help! Maybe they could get newspapers like The Economist to highlight this pretty blatant racism. Or how about the law in Jordan which specifically denies citizenship to Jews? I'm sure they'd be up in arms against that.

Wouldn't they?

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