The Debate Link

This is a gripping account from the pilot of El Al flight 219, which Leila Khaled and a partner tried to hijack in 1970. Khaled had already successfully hijacked an Israel-bound plane in 1969, and in this attempt they shot and severely wounded a flight attendant and pulled the pin on two hand grenades, seriously threatening the lives of remaining passengers and crew. The pilot's quick thinking (he had previously served in the Israeli air force) managed to allow Israeli security officers to regain control of the plane (though they were aided by a stroke of pure luck -- Khaled's grenades never went off).

Incredibly, I found out recently that a professional colleague of mine was on this very flight, along with her daughter. As she tells it, they were sitting a row behind Khaled when the hijacking began.

It's worth noting that Khaled not only has never repudiated her prior acts of terrorism, but she continues to extol them as the epitome of virtuous resistance. There are, in history generally and the Middle East specifically, plenty of people with dim chapters in their past who've gone on to do salutary or even heroic things. Khaled, though, as best I can tell, is remembered primarily -- by both her admirers and detractors -- for her role in terrorizing innocents, and has never really evolved politically beyond that.

In October, I flagged an administrative decision by the Department of Transportation which concluded that Kuwait Airways refusal to board an Israeli citizen on a flight from New York to London violated the carrier's non-discrimination obligations. The airline contended that its policy was in accordance with Kuwaiti law prohibiting (on pain of hard labor) it from contracting with any Israeli, but the Department (rightly, in my view) decided that otherwise unlawful national origin discrimination does not become permissible just because it is mandated by a foreign nation.

This week, the airline announced it was ceasing its New York to London service. A challenge to the DOT decision remains pending before the D.C. Circuit, so it seems likely that Kuwait Airways will return to the route if it is allowed to resume discriminating against Israeli passengers. But for the time being, its stance is clear: If we have to board Israelis, we won't board anyone.

In an administrative decision, the Department of Transportation has decided that Kuwait Airways violated federal anti-discrimination laws when it refused to board an Israeli passenger traveling from New York to London. The airline was following policy set in accordance with the Arab League's boycott of Israel, which in Kuwait prohibits doing business with an Israeli national. The punishment for violating this law can include hard labor as well as a fine.

This strikes me as an important ruling (and the letter is well-reasoned). Airlines have a "common carrier" duty which generally obliges them to serve all comers, absent good reason for a refusal (I should note that this narrows the decision considerably, since most private entities are not common carriers and thus the presumption is not that they have to do business with any and all comers absent justification to the contrary). The Department, quite properly in my view, did not consider the airline's desire to adhere to Kuwaiti law as a valid ground for the discrimination because the law itself was "part of a discriminatory statutory scheme." It would defeat the purpose of the general aviation non-discrimination requirement if it could be circumvented by a foreign nation simply making the discrimination mandatory. This alone would probably have sufficed for to justify the DOT decision, but it also notes that this Kuwaiti law in particular -- part of its boycott of Israel -- is specifically contrary to U.S. policy, with several statutes and regulations passed which prohibit giving succor to the boycott in the American context.

Though it does not say directly what type of "discrimination" occurred (the relevant statute, 49 U.S.C. § 41310, prohibits "unreasonable discrimination" generally rather than breaking out specific protected categories), the letter strongly implies that refusal to serve an Israeli-qua-Israeli should be understood as a form of national origin discrimination (the Court explicitly analogized it to racial discrimination, long since outlawed on American carriers). That strikes me as obviously right (as I observed when the case was filed), and we're starting to see boycott moves analyzed under this framework.

While I am generally a fan of this move, I don't want to pretend it provides a clear answer to every case. After all, not every hostile action directed at an Israeli entity could properly be viewed as national origin discrimination anymore than someone boycotting (say) McDonalds for its labor practices could be said to be discriminating against "Americans". Moving forward, I suspect two factors will become essential to judicial analysis appraising the legitimacy of boycott efforts, with a third wild card. The first is their breadth. The Kuwait Airways case is an easy one because it banned Israelis tout court -- even if we can infer that Kuwait's reason for enacting its policy was in some way targeted at the Israeli state (for its policies? For existing? No matter.), by instantiating those objections in such an indiscriminate manner to target every single Israeli national it crosses over from targeted critique to unlawful bias. The second factor, which will be much more difficult to figure out in practice, goes to motive. Motive is the heart of contemporary discrimination analysis, and so in this context the question would be "are you boycotting X actor because it is Israeli, or for some other reason [e.g., because it allegedly violates human rights]." Many Jews suspect that the boycott movement really is motivated by anti-Israel (or often anti-Semitic) beliefs rather than a genuine and universal commitment to the supposed human rights practices publicly given as a justification. Hence, for example, the popularity of the "why don't you boycott so-and-so" response, where so-and-so is an entity in a different company that seems to be implicated in a similar network of abuses. This sort of "comparator" analysis is a valid way of establishing discriminatory motive, but in general motive is going to be difficult to prove. Were I to advise would-be boycotters (and that's a weird thing for me to write), I would suggest that (a) the boycotts must be narrowly tailored to particular alleged abusers, rather than sweeping up Israelis generally (so a campaign against Ahava is more likely to succeed than a general boycott of Israeli academics), and (b) to ensure that one does not only boycott Israeli entities but also maintains a diverse portfolio of boycotts so as to demonstrate that Israeli nationality is not the driving force behind the move.

The wild card is the applicability of America's anti-boycott statutes, which seek to prohibit American entities (including American offices of foreign actors) from boycotting certain foreign nationals at the behest of a boycotting state. This law was specifically passed in response to the Arab League boycott of Israel, although it has been enforced only sporadically. To the extent it is held to apply to the BDS movement generally (which presumably goes to the degree to which the movement is considered to be acting at the behest of a foreign state), all bets are off.

One of the more stressful things about being a graduate student, or other aspiring academic, is the constant refrain that there isn't necessarily a job waiting for you at the end. It's an exceptionally tight market right now, and many extremely smart and qualified candidates won't end up with a position. It can get a bit wearying. And it can get a bit infuriating when you see who has gotten these oh-so-rare positions:

An American college professor was arrested by Miami-Dade police on Saturday for launching into an extended rant about Venezula and smoking on an airplane, all of which was captured on video.

Karen Halnon, identified as an associate professor of sociology at Penn State, was on an American Airlines flight from Nicaragua to Miami, according to television station WFOR.

“The United States has declared war on Venezuela,” Halnon repeated throughout the video, which was posted to YouTube as a clip titled "Crazy woman on a plane."

“Venezuela has been declared a national security threat," she repeated on the video.

"You're a national security threat," another passenger shot back.

Halnon later told WFOR that she was returning from a trip to Nicaragua working with single mothers and felt the need to talk to people about the destructiveness of U.S. imperialism.

On the tape, she eventually unbuckled her seatbelt as passengers around her groaned.

"My great hero Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil supply," she said. Halnon was then informed by a flight attendant that the police would be arresting her shortly.

Oh lord. You "felt the need" to go on a bender about the joys of your favorite autocrat? Which do you prefer -- his paeons to Carlos the Jackal and Idi Amin, or his penchant for jailing judges he dislikes? To quote Ron White, "next time you have a thought, just let it go."

Oh, but it gets better:

At one point, Halnon calmly lit a cigarette as the passenger next to her got up and left.

"This girl's a gangster," another onlooker said.

Hanlon confirmed to WFOR that she indeed lit a cigarette on the plane.

“I took a few puffs out of it," she said. "Every other revolutionary smokes. Fidel. Daniel Ortega. Tomás Borge. Che Guevara."

"Every other revolutionary smokes"? What are you, twelve years old? This is a joke.

In any event, if you're a sociology graduate student wondering who's getting the job you so desperately want, here's your answer. Blergh.

An American-residing Israeli woman (with an Israeli passport) is suing Kuwait Airlines after it refused to board her on a flight from New York to London. Kuwaiti law prohibits allowing Israeli citizens to travel on the airline.

The airline's defense rang odd to me:

The airline’s attorney John Maggio told the newspaper that the suit has no merit because the policy is based on citizenship, not religion. He said that a Muslim with an Israeli passport also would not be allowed on the plane.

I mean, okay, but then how is this not just an example of national origin discrimination instead? Am I just missing something obvious?

Here's a shocker -- of course the attack on the Malaysian Airlines jet that was shot down over Ukraine would be blamed on the Jews [http://theunhivedmind.com/UHM/new-venice-zionists-shoot-down-malaysian-airlines-mh17-to-ignite-confrontation-with-brics-head-russia/]:

NEW VENICE ZIONISTS SHOOT DOWN MALAYSIAN AIRLINES MH17 TO IGNITE CONFRONTATION WITH BRICS HEAD RUSSIA
[...]
Just this week the Ukrainian Army were given numerous BUK-M1 weaponry which were deployed right next to the Donetsk region and in Kharkiv by Wednesday all just one day prior to this event and all ready to take down any enemy combatants. So one outcome of this event may well be Israel soon getting commercial airline orders for all civilian aircraft to be fitted out with Multi-Spectral Infrared Countermeasure and Directional InfraRed CounterMeasure systems from Elbit. This today will also aid Israel by allowing their zionist media networks to cover-up the Gaza war crimes as interest all lies back on President Putin and Russia rather than on the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip happening on the very same day.
[...]
Expect a lot more plane events like this using Boeing aircraft but most aircraft run the same type of system today so they are all basically drones you should never use. So in truth the U.S could just fly this aircraft into the ground and claim on their media networks (MI6, MI5, CIA, Mossad) that the plane had been fired upon even if it had not and the herd would believe such lies thanks to Serco OOOI interventions. This MH17 flight was supposedly followed by two Ukrainian jets just prior to the downing of the aircraft. I could believe that these Zionists may even go to the length of painting up an aircraft as Ukrainian and firing on this airliner to wind up Pro-Russians but usually they will do this in the enemies colors but if they use Ukrainian colors then Putin might just step in and confront the Ukraine as he has threatened over the recent shelling from Ukraine into Russia killing an innocent Russian citizen.

And I think we have our mole -- "One Israeli Dies in Malaysia Airlines Shoot-Down Over Ukraine. Smoking gun! Let's learn all about this dastardly Mossad agent who no doubt orchestrated this heinous act:

Itamar Avnon, Convert to Christianity....

Whoops -- let me revise. Let's learn all about this dastardly Mossad agent who no doubt orchestrated this heinous act brave martyr murdered by the Elders of Zion for his heresy.

That's how you conspiracize, people. I know this is breaking news and all, but I shouldn't have to clean up afterwards like this.

Franklin Graham promotes bombing Syrian airstrips to protect civilians from the Assad regime. This, in of itself, may not be a fringe position, but Robert Farley is surely correct that the rhetorical decision to cast the F-15E Strike Eagle in the role of the Good Samaritan may be a little incongruous.

They say when you're having trouble making a decision, you should make a pro/con list. Well, I'm having trouble deciding how to blog about my Thanksgiving break. So let's give it a shot, in chronological order.

Thursday

Pro: Going to visit my mom's family in Newport, RI for Thanksgiving. My relatives are great and I always love seeing them. Plus, it's Jill's big rollout to that side of my family.

Pro: Thanksgiving was delicious and my family loved Jill. And she liked them back. Success all around!

Pro: Was actually hungry at around 11:30 PM Thanksgiving night. Ordered online from a pizza place in town, and had to create a profile with my address. When I showed, the guy behind the counter was surprised -- he assumed the order from "Champaign, IL" was a prank. But he had made our pizza anyway, just in case! It was delicious.

Hey, this is going pretty well so far! Let's keep up the momentum!

Friday

Con: Travel home to Maryland, and am assigned the dreaded "pack up or give away your treasured childhood toys" project. I'm very sentimental and I seriously anthropomorphized my toys as a kid, so this sort of thing devastates me (I refuse to watch Toy Story 3, which I'm pretty sure would emotionally shatter me beyond repair).

Saturday

Pro: It's my mom's birthday! And she likes the gifts Jill and I bought (jewelry). We're going to Morton's for dinner, too.

Pro: Jason's gift for mom is even better than mine, but I love my mom so this counts as a "pro" too. Besides, Virginia got slaughtered by Virginia Tech, so he needed the pick me up.

Con: Morton's was delicious, but I actually ate myself sick, which I don't think I've ever done before.

Sunday

Pro: See a bunch of old high school friends, one of whom is now a law student and wanted my advice. Office hours practice! Also try Settlers of Catan for the first time. It was a lot of fun, even if I did get blown out (stupid ore).

Con: Have to drive up to Annapolis for an all-day professionalism course to be admitted to the MD bar. I hate driving. Even when I don't get lost. Which I did. And I had to rent a car, which turned out to be a Kia Soul. I feel like a massive tool.

Con: I just can't be trusted around food this weekend. Get Ledo Pizza for dinner, another favorite of mine, and eat myself sick again. What is wrong with me?

Monday

Con: Hey, you know what takes the sting off a 7:30 AM wakeup call? A 2 AM fire alarm! Thanks, Sheraton!

Con: Professionalism course actually isn't as boring as I had feared, but it doesn't matter because the aforementoned fire alarm means I'm nodding off through the entire morning session anyway.

Pro: Afternoon session is a little better. I teach myself to make crosswords puzzles. It's a completely different skill set than filling them in. Mine aren't symmetrical, and have some two letter clues. But they're still pretty good for first efforts.

Con: Finally done! Roll back into Bethesda at around 6 PM, and check my cellphone (no electronic devices allowed at the professionalism course). My character interviewer called. Apparently about half of materials never arrived. He tells me to look into it. My interview is at 11 AM Tuesday. FML. Frantic phone calls ensue.

Tuesday

Con: It's rainy and otherwise miserable. Get to interviewer's office 10 minutes earlier, wait around for 45. My flight back to Illinois departs at 2:30, so I'm a little antsy.

Pro: Interviewer is really nice, and the whole thing takes about 5 minutes. Missing materials are apparently no problem -- just have folks fax him a letter. He also says "good, you're not an idiot" when I refrain from offering "any additional positive or negative things you want the character committee to know about your fitness to practice law?"

Pro: Tell the people who need to fax things to do so, and get to the airport in plenty of time. Things are looking up! And we're actually flying into Champaign (with a connection through Chicago), rather than having to take a train for once. My excitement at this fact will turn into bitter irony soon enough.

Con: Half a hamburger and my stomach starts aching. Oh come on.

Con: Flight from DC to Chicago is delayed an hour due to high winds in Chicago. Uh-oh.

Con: Flight from Chicago to Champaign canceled entirely. Double uh-oh.

Con: Gate agent puts me standby for the next flight to Champaign, which leaves O'Hare at 6:15. Also informs me it's booked solid.

Pro: Realize that there is no way we'll actually get on the Champaign flight, seize on the brilliant idea to just bail in Chicago and take the 8 PM train to Champaign. I'm so clever. I even get the gate agent to pull our bags and retag them to go to Chicago, so we can claim them at the Chicago carousel when we arrive.

Pro: 3:00 rolls around and we're boarding the plane.

Con: 3:30 rolls around and we're instructed to all get off the plane. The gate agent, with a keen insight on passenger psychology, informs us that if she hadn't deplaned us, we would have been stuck on the tarmac for 3 and a half hours. This staves off the torches and pitchforks.

Con: Flight is delayed indefinitely. Suddenly worried that it will get in too late to catch the 8 PM train. Also find out that there is another, 8:15 flight to Champaign which we probably could have gotten on if we missed the 6:15 flight. Curse myself for having "brilliant" ideas.

Con: It's about 5 PM, and we are about to start a half hour of being "just a few minutes away" from boarding.

Pro: It's 5:30 PM, and we've started to board. Hurray! Gate agent says the boarding process will be sped up if people volunteer to gate check their baggage. Nobody volunteers.

Pro: Gate agent gets back on the mic and informs us that if we don't push off the gate by 6 PM, the flight will be canceled outright. Repeats whether anyone is willing to gate check; swarmed by volunteers. She has a very keen grasp on passenger psychology.

Con: Everyone is on the plane by 5:40. We're just sitting here, waiting, at the gate. I wish there was a big red clock giving a countdown until 6 PM.

Pro: We push off at 5:55 PM. Awesome!

Pro: Flight is pretty smooth, but on the approach to O'Hare our jetliner is getting tossed around pretty bad by the wind. Suddenly glad I'm not flying on the 23-seat turboprop that would be going to Champaign.

Con: Land at about 6:30, central time. Frantically doing calculations about how long it will take to get our bags and catch a cab from O'Hare to Union Station. Compare this to the alternative plan of getting our bags, going back through security, and rebooking ourselves on the 8:15 Champaign flight. Not only do we really only have time to pursue one option, but again grapple with possibility that my "brilliant" idea will mean we miss both the plane and the train.

Con: Waiting at baggage, bags start coming off at around 6:50. Ours don't come. At 7:10 I go up to the lost baggage counter.

Pro: Our baggage is indeed lost. This counts as a "pro" because it means we no longer have to wait at O'Hare, and can high-tail it to Union Station. I fill out a quick form telling them where to ship the bags and ask them whether they think we'll make it to Union Station ontime for an 8 PM train. Fraught glances are exchanged.

Pro: Catch a cab, tell the driver our situation. He promises he'll try, then proceeds to weave through rush hour Chicago traffic like a fucking boss. I love him right now. We get to Union at 7:45 PM, joke we could have dawdled and seen the sights. I tip nearly 30%.

Pro: We just make the train. Text that we've "made it", even though "it" means being 3 hours from our final destination.

Pro: Get to Champaign and it's almost 11. Go to the 24-hour diner for dinner. Did I mention I haven't eaten since the half-hamburger at DCA approximately 11 hours ago? Famished. Scarf down two chili dogs with fries.

Con: Feel sick again. This whole concept of food is starting to unnerve me.

Tuesday

Con: Get "good news!" from American Airlines. They've found one of our two bags! I'm so proud, and cannot fathom why they're bankrupt.

Pro: Call them back and manage to track down bag #2. They're both in Champaign. She asks if I want them shipped or if we'll pick them up at the airport. Select "ship", refrain from mentioning that I already told them that back at O'Hare. Am informed I'll be called when they're on the way.

Con: Phone rings in class, so I ignore it, but figure it's AA telling me my bags are on the way. Wrong. It's AA telling me (again) they have my bags and want to know if I'd like them shipped or pick them up myself. If I call them back in five minutes (which is to say, 1 hour and 30 minutes ago), they can send them out at 3 PM!

Pro: Call AA back at around 5 PM, select the "ship" option. Am told they'll get to me in about an hour and a half. We elect to stay in for dinner as a result.

Con: Get another "good news" call from AA, which is behaving a little too much like Hubert Farnesworth for my tastes. They tell me that my bags are scheduled to be sent out at 8 PM, but that it might take longer for them to get to me.

....and that's where we're at now. Good to get that off my chest. Thanks for listening!

Three years ago, Loudoun County, Virginia County Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R) attempted to draw Muslim support by attending a rally and pledging to "stand with you". But he then immediately followed up by asking whether those in the crowd "come in peace" and whether they pledge allegiance to the United States.

This displayed, to say the least, exceptionally poor judgment -- akin, I remarked, to "giving a speech at a GLAAD event and demanding to know how many audience members have molested children."

Perhaps I should have used a different example:

A widely distributed e-mail written by [Eugene] Delgaudio for the Public Advocate about TSA, claims the pat downs are part of a "Homosexual Agenda." And he criticizes TSA's non-discrimination hiring policy.

"It's the federal employee's version of the Gay Bill of Special Rights... That means the next TSA official that gives you an 'enhanced pat down' could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission," Delgaudio wrote.

When I read outlandish things like this, I can't help but recall that classic Onion article, "Repeal Of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Paves Way For Gay Sex Right On Battlefield, Opponents Fantasize".

... in related delusions, how about this doozy from a Minnesota minister: "Keith Ellison is advancing Sharia law through 'homosexual agenda'". Talk about a strange bedfellows (the bizarre thing -- well, more bizarre, anyway -- is that this particular minister has in the past explicitly applauded the execution of homosexuals in some Muslim countries).

Daniel Gordis has a rather repellent column up in the Jerusalem Post. It purports to be about the Park 51 community center, but it actually barely talks about it. Rather, its focus is on the need of Americans to know, with clarion certainty and no distractions, that we are in a potentially endless, apocalyptic war, with Muslims (yes, yes, not all Muslims are terrorists. But this observation, he writes, "only goes so far."). To the extent the Cordoba Initiative comes up, it seems to be that any indulgence to any Muslim, anywhere, risks distracting us from this steely steadfastness we'll need to pull through.

As Tim F. once noted, the possibility that Americans might forget that Muslim terrorists attacked us on 9/11 "seems vanishingly unlikely when at any given time a Republican is running for office somewhere." But more fundamentally, what this article is, more or less, is an unapologetic paean to pure fear. It says that America's noted "gentility" (which, I imagine, is like France's noted courtesy. I love America and lots of things about it, but "gentility" is hardly among our better-known qualities) will be the end of us. For all its macho rhetoric about how we need to be strong and unified, it is cowardly and weak. For all the talk about how the terrorists wish to destroy us and our liberties (and, no doubt, they do), it seeks to do much of their job for them, by turning our robust, vibrant, and free society into a paranoid fortress. I fly pretty often, and no, US air travel is not "abominably unpleasant". It isn't, it doesn't have to be, and really, if that's the best you got, your siege mentality needs work. We have stood resilient for years against this threat, precisely by not making our state a ghastly imitator of bigoted, oppressive regimes worldwide; precisely by not deciding that their discriminatory hatred is not a sin to fight, but a model to emulate.

We do need to be both the "land of the free" and the "home of the brave". But Daniel Gordis is not brave. He is weak. He is cowardly. He would have America panic and treat the Muslim community writ large as presumptive enemies, when what distinguishes America from so many countries around the world right now is the relative lack of homegrown Muslim radicalism. We've preserved that lofty status because we have no yet wavered from our belief that America is for all Americans -- that we are all equals here. Now, some folks, like Mr. Gordis, seek to cut and run from our constitutional commitments. There is no bravery in that.

I was feeling grumpy all day today, but I started to snap out of it tonight.

* * *

A Wisconsin prosecutor is threatening legal actions against teachers who follow a recently passed state law providing for comprehensive sex education. "Safe sex" apparently constitutes "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" (Via).

A Qatari diplomat was brought into custody after an incident on an airplane. Early reports indicated he might have tried to set off a shoe bomb, but now it sounds as if the situation was sparked by a misunderstanding about smoking on airplanes. Massive international crisis averted, minor diplomatic incident likely still ahead.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) has apologized for leaving out mention of slavery from his Confederate History Month proclamation, and added a paragraph stating "that the institution of slavery led to this war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights."

However, at least one prominent Black Virginia Democrat is not accepting the apology, citing a pattern of similar behavior from Governor McDonnell. On the other side, Ta-Nehisi Coates has a characteristically gracious, and insightful, post.

Assholes abound in the case of the small Southern town which went to extreme lengths to avoid having a lesbian student sully their prom (faux-lesbianism for the titillation of male students was, if prom photos are to believed, quite permitted).

The free speech analysis may be on target, but I think it's beyond clear that having inflammatory anti-Muslim messages posted on American military bases is precisely the sort of thing that poses a genuine threat to the security and well-being of the nation.

Snarking at a Bob Herbert column which -- quite accurately -- frets that Americans are getting distracting from the critical issues facing our country by obsessive focus on a few issues (such as the would-be Detroit airline bomber), Jeffrey Goldberg titles his post "Easy for You To Say" and writes "Try telling this to the people on that plane."

What does that even mean? Anytime someone faces a serious threat to their life, that's going to be a big deal to them. I don't mean to be callous, but that fact does not mean it automatically is a big deal for us as a society.

The failed attack on the airliner obviously is not a minor issue. But neither is it worthy of the all-consuming focus that it risks morphing into.

Eric Posner explains TSA strategy, once we rule out impossible extremes:

Once you eliminate the implausible corner solutions—the TSA undertakes body cavity searches of every passenger, or security screenings are abolished—a number of consequences follow.

1. The TSA must randomize (play a “mixed strategy,” in game-theoretic parlance). Otherwise, terrorists can predict some of its precautions and evade them. The same principle explains why police vary patrol routes and road blocks. A NYT article today makes clear that the TSA is self-consciously randomizing to keep terrorists off guard.

2. At the social optimum, the number of successful terrorist attacks will be greater than zero. It might be argued that we have had too few successful terrorist attacks over the last few years rather than too many. The question is whether the implicit statistical valuation of life in TSA programs is too high. I suspect that the answer is yes, as is generally the case with airline safety.

3. Profiling is an effective strategy when, as here, terrorists come from a small group of (relatively) easily identifiable people. One suspects that this explains Israel’s success. But profiling places a large portion of the cost of deterrence on a small group, which makes some people morally uneasy.

4. Once the implausible corner-solutions are ruled out, any security policy or threshold will seem arbitrary because you have to draw the line somewhere, which means that it will be easy to point to some permitted activity that is only slightly different from what is forbidden (for example, carrying on 100 ml of liquid rather than 101 ml).

5. As for the “security theater” claim–

a. If ordinary people are fooled into thinking that the TSA is doing more than it is really doing, then at least some potential terrorists will be fooled as well, and so will be deterred from engaging in airplane-terrorism.

b. Ordinary people will also fly more often, which means that one of the goals of terrorists—to terrorize people so that they will pressure their government to make concessions to terrorists—will have failed.

How Chicago was that post? But he's right, though I'll note a tension between numbers 1 and 3. A profiling regime is by definition not random, so terrorists can construct an "anti-profile" to beat the system -- the so-called "carnival booth" (because it encourages terrorists to "step right up and see if they're a winner").

I also think that 5(a) is maybe overstated, as the point is that the facial security measures might fool us average rubes, but not anybody actually intent on breaching airport security. I suppose there might be some aspiring terrorist who is awestruck by the festival of it all, but I have to think that anybody who is intent on breaching TSA security won't give up that easily.

On the other hand, while I don't accept 2 whole-heartedly, I do think it is important to note that pretty much any feasible screening system we come up with will not be fail-proof. Terrorists might get through even if we do everything right. It's really annoying when people act as if pretty well random and unpredictable acts are examples of outrageous bureaucratic incompetence. The TSA isn't the Green Lantern -- it doesn't protect us just by willing it hard enough.

I couldn't parody this: BMI and Airbus literally removed Israel from its on-air maps for certain planes intended for Arab destinations. This is bad enough, but when the plane was instead used for a flight to Tel Aviv, the passengers found that as far as their in-flight maps were concerned, their destination didn't exist -- in fact, they were actually headed for Mecca.

UPDATE: BMI apologized, but to my ears they seem kind of wishy-washy on whether or not they'll change the maps or just swap the planes.

The Forward writes on ultra-Orthodox pressure on El Al to run flights more accommodating to their religious sensibilities. The big sticking point at the moment is in-flight movies, which the rabbinate deems too secular and "immodest". El Al so far refuses to budge, so a group of rabbis released a guide to super-kosher flying. And here's the irony: it appears the way to attract an ultra-orthodox Jewish clientele is to suck at your job:

Meanwhile, airlines that are widely regarded as offering poor customer service — one symptom of which is the absence of in-flight movies — are highly recommended by the guide, and are likely to experience heightened popularity among Haredi travellers in coming weeks.

For domestic flights within the United States, US Airways is movie-free and therefore deemed the most kosher. The airline ranked last in the 2008 American Customer Satisfaction Index, a survey of airlines conducted by the University of Michigan.

For European travel, the no-frills approach of state airlines of post-communist countries strikes a chord with the rabbis. They endorse Poland’s LOT and Ukraine’s Aerosvit Airlines, which is ranked as “poor” by the Official Airline Star Ranking run by aviation consultancy Skytrax.

Travelers to Britain are urged to choose British Midland Airways, which shows no movies except on Tuesdays. On Tuesdays the guide suggests that travelers request to be seated in one of the 36 seats between rows 7 and 11, where there is an obstructed view of the screens.

I'd reference the old Jewish joke ("Why did God create Gentiles? Someone has to buy retail!") except that elsewhere in the article the super-observant Jews are quoted as saying they'd pay more for fewer amenities (or as they put it, an "appropriate environment").

Between these guys and Madoff, Jews are at risk of losing our reputation as being wise with money. Somebody page Tommy Thompson, quick!

Headline from Ha'aretz: "Israeli warplanes almost shoot down Tony Blair's plane."

Blair, the former Prime Minister of the UK and now a mid-east peace envoy, was flying to Bethlehem from Cairo, Egypt. Unfortunately, his plane's communication equipment malfunctioned, meaning that it did not respond Israeli requests for identification when the plane crossed into Israeli airspace. Assuming the aircraft was a hostile, fighters were scrambled, but fortunately were able to establish contact with the plane before anything bad happened.

And how bad it might have been. The Israeli air force shooting down Tony Blair's plane? It'd have been a conspiracy theorist's wet dream!

Ezra Klein on the FAA's fine of Southwest for being a bit too lax on their safety inspections:

This is why we need government in certain industries. The Libertarian solution here -- that a plane would crash and the market would punish the irresponsible -- would be sort of shitty for all involved.

As someone who used to fly ValuJet, allow me to concur full-throatedly.