So this is what we’ve come to in America: A UC Berkeley student was ordered off a Southwest Airlines flight and later questioned by the FBI merely because another passenger heard him speaking Arabic.
Khairuldeen Makhzoomi is a student whose family fled Iraq in 2002 after his diplomat father was executed by Saddam Hussein. He was flying home from a dinner at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council with Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, and he stopped to call an uncle of his and tell him how the event had gone. As you might expect, the conversation was in Arabic, and Makhzoomi admits that as he was ending the call, he said “inshallah,” which means “if God is willing.”
Shortly after making the call, Makhzoomi says a female passenger gave him an odd look and stood up from her seat. He adds:
“She kept staring at me and I didn’t know what was wrong. Then I realized what was happening and I just was thinking ‘I hope she’s not reporting me.'”
A few minutes later, an airport employee requested that Makhzoomi leave the plane. He was soon in the company of three airport security officers.
Why did the woman get so upset? Makhzoomi said he was later told the woman thought he said “Shahid,” an Arabic term for martyr that is sometimes used by Islamic terrorists.
Makhzoomi tried to explain to security personnel that the woman was engaging in Islamophobia. For his protestations, the matter was turned over to the FBI. He noted:
“At that moment I couldn’t feel anything. I was so afraid. I was so scared.”
As the incident escalated, security officials searched Makhzoomi’s luggage and also began to pat him down, asking him if he was carrying a knife as they felt around his crotch:
“That is when I couldn’t handle it and my eyes began to water. The way they searched me and the dogs, the officers, people were watching me and the humiliation made me so afraid because it brought all of these memories back to me. I escaped Iraq because of the war, because of Saddam and what he did to my father. When I got home, I just slept for a few days.”
Makhzoomi said he wants an apology from Southwest:
“All I need is an apology to say, ‘’We are sorry we singled you out because [of] one person who felt threatened.'”
For their part, the airline would only say that Makhzoomi was removed from the flight because crew members wanted to “investigate potentially threatening comments made onboard our aircraft.”
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