Trump Calls For ‘Profiling’ To Combat Terrorist Threat

by Saagar Enjeti

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called for profiling techniques to combat U.S. domestic terrorism threats during an appearance on Fox News Monday.

“In Israel, they profile. They’ve done an unbelievable job, as good as you can do,” Trump elaborated.

This is not the first time Trump has called for such a practice. “Other countries do it, you look at Israel and you look at others, they do it and they do it successfully. And I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to start using common sense and we have to use our heads,” Trump told CBSNews in June 2016.

Trump’s statement comes after three likely terrorist incidents across the U.S. Saturday. A large explosive device injured 29 in New York City, hours after a bomb exploded in a trash can at a Marine Corps charity race in New Jersey.

A Minnesota man stabbed nine people at a local mall Saturday night. Islamic State media called the Minnesota man “a soldier of the Islamic State.”

The FBI is seeking Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghan naturalized U.S. citizen, in connection with the New York and New Jersey blasts.

Trump’s proposal likely mimics aggressive Israeli counter-terrorism practices, which include racial and religious profiling. Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport remains one of the safest airports in the world, in large part due to Israeli security. When asked why security practices at Israeli airports were superior to U.S. airports, an Israeli defense official told the country’s media in 2010, “Oh, that’s simple …We use racial profiling, they don’t.”

Passengers boarding flights in Israel are subject to a battery of questions before boarding their flights. These questions focus on age, race, religion and destination to query the passenger’s potential terrorist threat. Based on the results of these questions, passengers are relegated to different levels of security screening before takeoff.

The practice of racial profiling as a counter-terrorism technique is ingrained in Israeli society, so much so there is literally no word for it in Hebrew. Israeli defense officials see no problem with this, saying the crux of their screening is based on “the human factor.”

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