A new bill by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) would make it easier for Israelis to visit the United States by making them part of the visa waiver program.
The bill has come under heavy criticism because it doesn’t require Israel to extend the same privilege to Muslim and Arab Americans– or for that matter– any American.
A blog in the Los Angeles Times by George Bisharat recounts how he was questioned for hours by screeners at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Jerusalem and even strip searched. Bisharat who is a professor at UC Hastings College of Law happens to be half Palestinian on his father’s side. His mother is an American descendant of one of the signer’s of the US Constitution, William Samuel Johnson.
He writes “The screeners, typically youngsters half my age, grow tenser and the questions begin: “Where was your father born? Where are you going in Israel? What is your purpose here? Where will you stay? How many times have you been here before? Who do you know in Israel?” I respond, patiently and truthfully. On it goes for hours, punctuated by long waits on hard benches as increasingly senior interrogators shuttle in. Occasionally I am strip-searched.”
Bisharat accuses Boxer of supporting Israel’s blatant racial profiling.
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You can read more about his argument in the Los Angeles Times.
