[danielbln]

One of the few great benefits of going through Ben Gurion Airport in TelAviv is that due to their alternative approach to security (and profiling) noone gives a damn about your liquids. Want to go through the scanner holding a super gulp with a bag full of liquids? Go right ahead.

[seszett]

First rule at Ben Gurion is "don't be Arab" though. So maybe their "alternative approach" works for you, but it does have some downsides.

[zidad]

Or even don't be associated with.

As someone who used to visit the west bank for work I've spent many hours in intimidating interrogation, appropriated laptops, missed flights and most recently 3 days in a horrible prison without access to a shower or fresh clothing, after being denied access to the country for completely nonsense reasons. And the security argument is complete BS most of the time, NGO employees get the same kind of treatment.

The Ben Gurion approach really only works well if the border personnel likes you, A.K.A you're of the right ethnicity, which is not a shining example of how it's done right IMO.

[andreiii]

Ethnicity is irrelevant actually. Don't be associated with trouble makers.

[zidad]

I don't associate with trouble makers, that's your racist bias. I work with palestinian students and software developers.

[HopenHeyHi]

It is a degrees of separation thing. Logically derived and proven to be effective. Very hard to argue with the last part.

I understand how someone who has been inconvienced might perceive it differently but that in and of itself is by design and "priced in" as the goal is not to make 100% of travelers feel good but rather keep 100% of travelers safe.

[hobo_in_library]

Brilliant

All policies are fine as long as they only hurt Arabs and Arab-sympathizers (which are just synonyms for "terrorist").

Thank goodness policies like these never hurt Jews when applied in reverse.

[zidad]

So if it's for the safety of the travelers how logical is it that half of these "inconveniences" happen AFTER the actual flight?

[orangepurple]

What????

[jillesvangurp]

I think unlike the rest of the world, the Israeli's actually know they are actively being targeted. It's not a hypothetical. Politics aside, Palestinians match the Arabian profile and are an active threat. That really sucks if you are completely innocent and ethnically Arab and happen to travel that way of course but it is what it is. They simply are not going to take any chances. It's unfair, probably racist, and it works. And love them or hate them but they have kept a really clean record and that's not for a lack of people trying.

The Israeli's have perfected their airport security over the years and it's a multi layered system of intelligence, profiling, observation via camera's and no doubt lots of high tech. By the time you get to security, they know exactly who they are dealing with. You wouldn't get anywhere near there if that wasn't the case.

And as they've learned the hard way in Israel, security checkpoints can also be active targets. A lot of the gaza and west bank border crossings have been targeted in the past. Basically, any concentration of people is a potential target. So if somebody with a bomb makes it even close to a checkpoint, they've already lost. They need to catch people before that.

The chaotic scenes in European and US airports in the last decades where you regularly have thousands of people piling up in front of security checkpoints, kind of drives home just how low that particular threat actually is. It's a security nightmare. Yet it rarely goes wrong. There was an attack in Brussels airport a few years ago and it was pretty awful but that's one of the few times that actually happened. Otherwise what happens at airports is security theater. It's mostly not actually about security but about plausible deniability when things do go wrong.

[HopenHeyHi]

If you actually want to be informed on the subject I highly recommend:

How to Design Impenetrable Airport Security by Wendover Productions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1kJpHBn50, 14 minutes, well researched)

Doesn't appear to have any downsides, appears to be logical, effective, and necessary. Appeals to emotion not withstanding.

If you have any good faith suggestions for improvement after watching this I'd be all ears.

[andreiii]

Most Arab Israelis get a 2/6 on security profiling... meaning they pass through w/o even extensive bag check. Same as people with family in Israel.

[tgv]

Or be a tall, blonde Western European with a suspicious stamp in your passport. They'll question you at length and open your photo camera, film roll or not. The stamp was from Qatar or UAE, can't remember.

[BeFlatXIII]

I wonder if the US military still provides multiple passports to members deployed in sensitive regions so they can use the passport that is least likely to cause trouble in each airport.

[danielbln]

I hear that's also true for US Airports, yet I still have to take off my shoes there and shove no more than 100ml of liquids into a transparent bag.