Earlier this month the veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh exposed how America had supported Israel’s bombing campaign against Hezbollah even before the militant group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. He also described how Israel’s attack was meant to be a dry run for an American strike against Iran. It was a precursor strike to assist America’s wider war against its “axis of evil” states such as Iran and Syria.

Had America or Israel stopped to think before the conflict, they would have realized you cannot bomb popular resistance movements into submission. It hasn’t worked in Iraq, or Palestine and it was never going to work in the Lebanon. Hersh finished his devastating expose in the New Yorker magazine by saying “the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.”

While fifteen people have now been charged with different offences relating to the alleged plot, the government has put forward the idea of “passenger profiling” or “positive profiling” to make air travel safer. This is where airline passengers are screened to see if they fit a pre-determined list of criteria that fits a profile of a terrorist suspect. If they fit the criteria people are subject to extremely severe security checks, or even barred from flying.

First introduced by Israel, for years other governments have shied away from using it, but since the latest UK alert it is rapidly gaining support. Earlier this month, European Ministers agreed a system for the "positive profiling" of European airline passengers at an emergency meeting in London. Some EU countries, particularly France and the Netherlands, want to go even further and introduce explicit checks on Muslim travelers. This is one step further and is called “racial profiling”, but often “positive profiling” and “racial profiling” are seen as the same thing.

The British government has tried to dispel rumours that passenger profiling will target Muslims by arguing that people will be screened on so-called “biometric” checks - electronic eye or facial scans. Most people, however, suspect that ethnicity and religion will also be used. One headline in the Times newspaper said it all: “Muslims face extra checks in new travel crackdown.”

Since the security scare, senior figures in the UK and those on the political right in America have increased their campaign for passenger profiling. Lord Stevens is the former head of the Metropolitan Police, the police force that controls London. In an article in the news of the World he wrote: “I'm a white 62-year-old 6ft 4ins suit-wearing ex-cop—I fly often, but do I really fit the profile of suicide bomber?” Stevens went on to say that “the truth is Islamic terrorism in the West has been universally carried out by young Muslim men, usually of ethnic appearance, almost always traveling alone or in very small groups. A tiny percentage, I bet, of those delayed today have such characteristics”. 

Heather Macdonald from the right-wing Manhattan Institute argued for ethnic screening on the BBC programme Newsnight. Macdonald’s argument was that because most “terrorists” were young Muslim men, they are the passengers who should be profiled.

Not everyone is in favour, though. Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei, who is one of Britain's most senior Muslim officers, has spoken publicly against passenger profiling. Dizaei debated Heather Macdonald on BBC’s Newsnight programme. “What you are suggesting” he told her “is that we should have a new offence in this country called ‘traveling whilst Asian’”. He concluded by saying that "We cannot lose sight of the fact that terrorists come in all shapes and sizes”.

Others are concerned too. Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain, says that the British government needs to “think very, very carefully” before it considers putting passenger profiling into place. “We have seen very different arrests since 9/11, and terrorists, or suspected terrorists, come from many different backgrounds”, he says.

Fahad Ansari from the Islamic Human Rights Commission agrees. He argues that “It’s based on a completely racist assumption that all Muslims are basically the same and that we all could be potentially terrorists. Ansari believes that the policy “would not only alienate young Muslims, it would alienate elderly British Muslims too.”

Shami Chakrabarti from the human rights organization, Liberty, has also condemned passenger profiling as “not smart security”. She adds: “I believe that we're dealing with ruthless terrorists and probably for a significant period of time - that means people who will have no hesitation using and abusing children, using people of different races, converts and people who have been threatened or induced to carry explosives.”

But there are extremely worrying views being expressed. Since the alleged bombing plot was uncovered,  the news network CNN ran a survey on passenger profiling. One person from Toronto replied: “What's all this fuss about ‘profiling?’ The 9/11 terrorists were Muslims of Middle Eastern descent and cultural background. The alleged terrorists in the UK plane plot are of similar background. Why would the police waste precious time and resources looking for white Christians from Sweden or any other country when tracking potential terrorists? Let's get real”.

Another respondent called Erwin Dirks, wrote: “Some form of profiling is the only solution to attacks that originate from one religious community. So far, the leaders of the Muslim community have blamed everyone and everything for the problem but refuse to take responsibility. Perhaps profiling will provide some incentive for the Muslim spiritual leaders to be part of the solution rather than the problem”.

The implication of the first respondent is that is if you are a Young Muslim, then you must be a terrorist. If you are a young white person, you are not. The second response is downright dangerous as it blames the Muslim community for the problem, rather that looking at the causes of terrorism, such as Britain and America’s foreign policy.

 This overtly racist and xenophobic view is not much different from that of the far-right British National Party who advocated at the height of the airline crisis “to ban immediately, all Muslims from flying out of (and in to) Britain until the security situation has been fully resolved”. All passenger profiling will do is demonise Muslims and give credence to the racist views of the BNP. It is a recipe for disaster.

It is too early to say what the long-term outcome of Israel’s failed bombing campaign in the Middle East will be, apart from being the most important recruiting tool Hezbollah could have dreamed of.  Children who cannot yet walk will already know the name of an enemy who destroyed their land in a futile war.

What we do know is that instead of a policy of blame and bombs, it has to be time to radically alter European and American foreign policy in the Middle East. If Britain continues to support Israeli and American policies towards Iraq and Lebanon, Syria and Iran the world will just become a more dangerous place.

Indeed, America’s policies continue to backfire in the region. A report published by the British think-tank Chatham House, argues that the US-led “war on terror” has bolstered Iran's power and influence in the Middle East, rather than diminish it.

Likewise, British foreign policy continues to backfire. So will this latest move on passenger profiling. If we continue to alienate the Muslim population of Britain and Europe, more and more people will be drawn into extremism. We need to work with the Muslim community to defeat extremism not make more extremists. As Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei says “It is communities that defeat terrorism, and what we don't want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists”.

But our government believes that passenger profiling is the way forward. We know it will alienate Muslims and therefore it will make us less safe. But somehow the government tries to convince us it will make us safer. A true definition of insanity, indeed.