You know what the pundits started calling the “theater of security” where those airport guards may keep us safe with some minor hassles OR may add little value, but just want to seem useful as they search old ladies. Then we all debate where the line is between legitimate restrictions for the public good and govt bureaucracies trying to justify their existence?

I had a Palestinian colleague in school who was on the receiving end of Israeli security and had no end of stories that would curl your hair. Long story short, while the IDF has legitimate reasons to screen the crap out of every Arab at every checkpoint, safety is not the only agenda. In this person’s opinion, Jewish safety regularly took a back seat to harassment. When he returned with a PhD (on a subject with no military use, but which appeared in the papers he had to show at 4 checkpoints in the 2 miles between home and work at a secular university.) he was harassed by guards twice as much as when he was younger, kind of like how educated blacks were twice as threatening as the poor, cowering sharecropper to certain white people in ages past.

I am certain of 3 things-
1. Israel has a right to self defense without reservation.
2. Palestinians are collectively more secular and more educated than any other Arab country, in part due to their proximity to Israel, in part due to the local universities being mostly secular. Saudi kids may major in Islamic philosophy; Palestinian boys and girls(!) go for mechanical engineering, teaching, nursing, etc..
3. The educated, sensible Palestinian is shat upon from both sides.