Posted 10/17/2003 03:33:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Political Correctness Run Amok

The FBI won't hire Jews, it might offend the Arabs..... Meanwhile they hire Muslims, and then have to arrest them for espionage... at least the Arabs weren't offended. Read Caroline Glick's column.

The story is that when, in the aftermath of September 11, the FBI made a public call for Arabic-speaking translators, over 90 Sephardic Jews from New York applied.

According to the Sephardic New York community leaders questioned in the story, many of these applicants – all American – had prior professional experience working for Israeli radio in Arabic and serving as linguists in the IDF. Indeed, for most of them, Arabic was their mother tongue.

The FBI has offered no official comment on its rejection of the applicants. Sources familiar with the FBI's vetting process have claimed that the sense was that the Jews "were too close to Israel" and might, according to the report, fail to translate documents in an objective manner. A former FBI official I spoke with on the issue said that he could not dismiss at face value the idea that perceived loyalty to Israel would in fact cause a Jew to be rejected by the FBI.

It is too soon to tell how much of this story is true. If American Jews are indeed being barred from contributing to the US war on terrorism for fear of conflicting loyalties with Israel, there is reason to be very distressed.

In the past month, Muslim military and civilian personnel working at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay have been arrested on suspicion of committing espionage for al Qaeda and Syria.