1. So it's OK if they have ties to Arabic countries' intelligence agencies but not to Israel's?Yup. I can see why they might have been excluded. Two reasons right up front.
1. Ties to Israeli Intelligence.
2. Not enough information to clear the candidate's background sufficient for employment.
"1. So it's OK if they have ties to Arabic countries' intelligence agencies but not to Israel's?
2. So you think it's easier to clear someone from Israel than from Iraq because it is easier to do a background investigation in Baghdad than Tel Aviv?"
Did I say any of those things? Good gravy.
I have reposted what I said early below:
"Without doing a proper background check, I couldn't tell you. You can't make blanket generalizations about nationalites in individual hiring decisions.
The son of a leader for Hamas might be the right man for the translator job, simply because his dad killed his mom and hates him for it.
You can't know these things unless you do the work. Again, all I can tell you is that there wasn't enough information in the article to make a judgement about the FBI. I do know that the way it was written, the FBI comes out looking bad, however. This is generally what happens in the press - it's the government or Americans that are the idiots.
What we do know is that the FBI has been partially responsible in keeping us terrorist-attack free since 9/11. That cannot have been an easy thing to succeed at. On that basis, I will give them the benefit of the doubt."
How did you arrive at the conclusions you did from those statements?
I think there is sufficient evidence to substantiate that Israel regularly operates its spies in the US. Countries have interests, not allies, and as such you have to be as diligent clearing an Israeli translator candidate as you would an Arab. Israel doesn't pose a grave and immediate threat to US national security, unless of course you consider that they were working with the Chinese on advanced avionics, radar, etc.
Regardless of nationality, if the arab translator is Swedish, you have to do the check.
And for the last time, there wasn't enough information in the article to determine whether the FBI was incompetent here. As such, their actions since 9/11 have earned them the benefit of the doubt - in my humble and solitary opinion.
As for 'easy to clear' - depends upon the individual and their history. You may be dealing with a white guy from Orange, CA, who for whatever reason wants to nuke a major US city, and thinks he can help his local Al Qaeda chapter by applying for a job as an Arab Translator. Is that not impossible? The guy in question is white, US citizen, and lives in Orange, for example - you still got to run the guy's background down to find out what makes him tick.
For certain jobs especially, I think you go the extra mile in doing your background checks and clearances. Translation is one of those jobs, in my opinion.