(JTA) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump lauded Israel for its success in using racial profiling to prevent terror attacks.
In a phone interview Monday with “Fox & Friends,” the network’s morning show, Trump said that U.S. police are afraid to consider religion or ethnicity when identifying suspects as potential terrorists.
“Our police are amazing. Our local police, they know who a lot of these people are,” Trump said in the interview. “They’re afraid to do anything about it because they don’t want to be accused of profiling and they don’t want to be accused of all sorts of things.
“You know, in Israel they profile. They’ve done an unbelievable job, as good as you can do. They see somebody that’s suspicious, they will profile. They will take that person and they’ll check out.”
The interview came after the FBI announced that it was searching for a naturalized Afghan citizen, Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, of New Jersey, in connection with an explosion in a New York City neighborhood and at a New Jersey train station.
Trump continued to press the profiling issue.
“Look what’s going on. Do we really have a choice?” he asked. “They’re trying to be so politically correct in our country and this is only going to get worse. This isn’t going to get better.”
Trump has previously cited Israel’s success in using profiling to prevent terror attacks.
