A few comments…
1) We don’t have Israel’s constitution.
2) We are an extremely diverse and densely populated country.
3) How the hell do you profile MUSLIMS? How do you know someone is a card carrying member of Isam?

secular_progrogressive on March 20, 2008 at 6:58 pm

Secular Progressive, to answer your question:
1) Israel is an extremely diverse country too. While more of a minority than in America, they do have black people (immigrants from Ethiopia). And (for lack of a better word) there is far more “racial diversity” among the Israeli Jewish population than there in America…..most Jews here are Ashkenazim and for the most part look like “white people”, while the majority (albeit a bare majority) of Israelis are Sephardim (who often have a more “swarthy” look than Ashkenazim) or Mizrahim (Jews from other Middle Eastern countries, who usually from a physical standpoint resemble the Palestinians and the peoples of Israel’s neighbors).
2) Why can’t we have a constitution like Israel’s? It’s not like Israel is a dictatorship compared to us, the laws/rights/form of government are fairly similar
3) You can’t know 100% that someone is a Muslim but they usually don’t hide under “Americanized” names, and for the most part there is a “Middle Eastern look”…..I’m not even thinking religious garb here but what you might call a “racial” look (and beyond that I’m also thinking age here). Or put another way, as Debbie says, I think there’s an obvious difference between a man with a name, look and “profile” that resembles bin Laden and a 90 year old female Holocaust survivor.

hairymon on March 22, 2008 at 9:31 pm