I may as well admit it: I’m a suspected terrorist. That’s what U.S. Homeland Security thinks of me, anyway.

For a while I lived in denial. The first time I was told at an American airport, a couple of years ago, that I had been selected for a special security check, I put it down to coincidence. The second time, too. It was only the third time that the quarter dropped. I was, if I remember correctly, flying to John F. Kennedy International Airport from Austin, Texas.

“You’ve been selected for special screening,” I was informed by the woman inspecting the boarding cards of the passengers about to join the line of those putting their hand luggage, computers, coats, jackets, belts, shoes, and small change through the X-ray machine. She made it sound as though I had won a distinguished award. “Step to the right and you’ll be attended to.”

By now I knew the routine. I stepped to the right and was greeted by a burly security guard. “This isn’t going to hurt,” he assured me. “I’m just going to give you a quick pat-down.”

He spread-eagled me against a wall, ran his hands over me, and passed me on to someone else who went through my carry-on bag item by item, measuring the toothpaste tube and wanting to know why there was only one shoe in the bag. I had already learned that you don’t answer a question like that, “It’s a gift for a one-footed friend back in Israel.” Jokes are inappropriate when you may have explosives in your toothpaste tube. I assured her that the other shoe was in my suitcase and was allowed to proceed to the departure gate.

Since then it has happened at least half-adozen more times, including twice last week when I flew from New York to Chicago and back for a lecture at Northwestern. As I’m a reasonably inoffensive-looking person, and have never been jailed except for a night in Selma, Ala., in 1965, the only reason I can think of for my plight is my American passport, which I travel with when in America. (I possess both American and Israeli citizenship.)

My current passport was issued in 2004 by the American embassy in Tel Aviv, which is apparently what incriminates me. Presented at the check-in counter of the airline I’m flying on, it earns me, I’ve come to notice, several little circles on my boarding card, at least one of which means that I’m the lucky winner of a free pat down.

In a word, I’ve been profiled. For some reason, Homeland Security thinks that native-born American citizens living in Israel are more likely to bomb or hijack airplanes than other people. And I’ll agree that there’s a certain logic to it, even if it’s not that of an Aristotelian syllogism. After all, Israel is in the Middle East; the Middle East is a hotbed of terrorism; therefore anyone choosing to live in Israel is a potential terrorist. The fact that Israelis, far more than Americans, are themselves the victims of Middle-East terror, that they are engaged in fighting it on a daily basis, and that no Israeli on record has ever committed an act of terror outside of Israel does not seem to enter into it.

It’s annoying and stupid. But no doubt the great majority of people who are profiled by police and security forces can justifiably claim that they are being treated annoyingly and stupidly. The African-American stopped by a patrol car on a city street, even though he is wearing a suit, has a college degree, and is no more likely to commit a crime than anyone else, is right to feel exasperated. So, for that matter, is the Arab scientist traveling to an international conference who has his personal belongings gone through as though he were a card-carrying Hamas member. Yes, Arabs make up a disproportionate percentage of today’s terrorists, but you won’t find many molecular biologists planting bombs.

This is the problem with all profiling. Although it makes statistical sense for law-enforcement agencies to resort to it, it is wasteful to the law enforcers, and an indignity to those profiled, when it is done foolishly. If you cast a net into shark-infested waters, you are more likely to catch a shark than if you simply wait for a fin to surface, but if you cast your net into a country pond because water is where sharks live, you’ll only roil a lot of water without catching any sharks.

Profiling is reasonable when the profiler uses his or her common sense. The problem is that bureaucratic apparatuses do not encourage common sense. Should employees at a check-in counter rely on it and spare a million passengers unnecessary aggravation, they will get no reward. Should a single genuinely suspicious character get by them, however, their jobs will be in danger. Who wants to have to make up his or her own mind under such circumstances? This week I’m flying back to Israel. I’ll enter the airport with a sense of relief. The security personnel at El Al will be Israeli. They’ll ask me a few questions, listen to my Hebrew accent, laugh at the joke I make, and wish me a good trip home. They’ll know who I am. You can’t expect that of someone in Austin or Chicago. In the final analysis, there’s nothing really wrong with profiling as long as the profile doesn’t happen to be yours.

Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.