By Philip Giraldi
"....Here at home, many of the passionate supporters of Israel, including Sens. Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain, are also advocates of more government snooping in areas that were once regarded as private. This is no coincidence, as supporting both Israel and the growing police state appear to go together. The Transportation Security Administration is modeled on Israeli border security, with its intrusive searches and ability to engage in largely arbitrary behavior. There are frequent demands from Congress to force the TSA to copy exactly Israeli air travel security practices, including profiling and prolonged interrogations of travelers. Indeed, many of the private security companies operating in the United States, particularly relating to air travel, are already Israeli. The PATRIOT Act also derives from the Israeli model of limiting civil liberties in terrorism cases to enable the police and security services to operate more freely. Unlimited detention without charges for terrorism suspects, recently introduced in the U.S. as part of the National Defense Appropriation Act of 2013, is similar to Israeli practices when dealing with Palestinians. In a step toward the “disloyal” second-class status afforded to Arab citizens of Israel, American Muslims have been singled out as enemies of the state by Rep. Peter King and others, a convenient label that also allows critics to indict their countries of origin as terrorist havens.
So we are Israel and Israel is us. Although the synergy has benefited Israel in the short term in that it has enabled the Netanyahu government to act with relative impunity, it is difficult to see what Americans might have gained from the exchange apart from a now well-established tradition of constant warfare against numerous enemies overseas and diminished rights and the seeds of sectarian conflict planted here at home."
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