By Zohar Blumenkrantz and Yoav Stern
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz announced on Tuesday that Ben Gurion International Airport security would no longer mark the luggage belonging to non-Jews with colored tags, in order to spare these passengers embarrassment.
Instead, Mofaz explained, the luggage of non-Jewish passengers will be stamped with the same color sticker as the Jewish passengers, only with a different number. In the past, the color of the sticker on the passenger's luggage would indicate to airport security personnel the level of security check they must administer.
This practice mainly affected Arab passengers.
The security checks at Ben Gurion have been denounced by many in the Arab sector as degrading. "We're talking about frequent degradation of Arab passengers, which causes great anger and frustration," MK Nadia Hilou (Labor) said in January, adding, "I won't leave this subject alone until it has been resolved."
The security checks at Ben Gurion have been denounced by many in the Arab sector as degrading. "We're talking about frequent degradation of Arab passengers, which causes great anger and frustration," MK Nadia Hilou (Labor) said in January, adding, "I won't leave this subject alone until it has been resolved."
Though the colored stickers have been discontinued since the beginning of August, the luggage belonging to Arab passengers still undergoes a more thorough security check than that of Jews. The Arabs' luggage is sent to an X-ray scanner with higher resolution.
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