Should We �Israelify� Our Airports?

By BJ Bjornson

Steve�s post the other day regarding the selective outrage at Michael Yon�s experience at U.S. customs has got me thinking even more on the issue of airport security. It is pretty much always an issue on my mind since I happen to live in an area where air travel is the only method available to me, meaning I have little to no choice but to undergo whatever new indignity the powers that be decide to impose on North American air travelers. Suggestions regarding leaving rude messages for the folks examining my junk aside, this article regarding how the Israelis have managed to produce a far more secure system with far less hassle to the traveler has certainly peaked my interest.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for � not for hours � but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is "Israelification" - a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

"The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport," said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?

"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.

Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" � behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.

"The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security," he said. "To us, it doesn't matter if he's black, white, young or old. It's just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I'm doing this?"

On this point I would disagree. Behavioural profiling has never been a problem so far as I am aware, it is the racial profiling that some have been agitating for that raise hackles and complaints.

The rest of the procedures listed follow the same sort of logic, focusing on the person rather than the objects they may be carrying as is done in North America. This part in particular caught my notice.

Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far.

. . .

Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben-Gurion Airport shares with Pearson � the body and hand-luggage check.

"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said.

"First, it's fast � there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."

This far from a minor point now that I think of it. I�ve been in more than a few line-ups waiting to go through security where a properly equipped suicide bomber could cause far more damage than if they got through and blew up the plane itself.

Now, I�ve never flown to Israel, so I cannot confirm whether or not their security is as hassle-free as the article makes it sound, but the thought of getting from the parking lot to the tarmac in a maximum of 25 minutes certainly sounds really, really nice given some of my experiences just flying domestically in Canada, which I understand is far nicer overall than flying to or within the US.

So. Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive, so un-Israelified?

Working hard to dampen his outrage, Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves.

"We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit � technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."

While the corporate culture common to all bureaucracies is at least partly to blame for our inefficient security, I would note there is at least one other problem that keeps our security forces from acting as Israel�s does.

You�ll note that Israel�s security forces are highly-trained and well-motivated. For our security to match theirs, we would need to have a similarly professional and motivated security corps. The problem we have is that if you want a highly professional and motivated security force, you have to offer the kind of pay and benefits highly trained professionals expect. While I don�t have an exact figure for what pre-boarding security screeners get paid, I think its fair to say that it isn�t exactly a highly sought after career path for the ambitious and talented.

As Dave has noted here a few times recently, security is often a trade-off between costs and benefits, and while the powers that be seem more than willing to spend huge sums on the kinds of toys that make looking at things much easier, the tend to be far more miserly when it comes to paying the folks who operate them.

From experience, I can tell you that the best defense organizations have from security breaches are the soft, almost intangible ones comprised of their staff�s ethics, morale, and willingness to make the right kind of decisions. Number-crunchers hate them because they don�t lend themselves to easy measurement or statistical analysis, which is why you see every attack, foiled or otherwise, met by increased hard controls in our airports. More screening of bags, fewer carry-ons, no liquids, scan the footwear, whatever. It�s also why the Israelis do so much better a job. Their security is focused on the kinds of controls that work the best.

Add to that the normal airline treatment of their passengers as little better than cattle, and you can begin to understand why our security services look at impersonal things rather than focusing on personal reactions as their touchstones. Security is set up like a assembly line, with the focus on scanning as much stuff as possible, with little to no regard to personal discomfort, privacy, or convenience. With the added caveat of squeezing as much profit as possible out of the lucrative security contracts, which generally explains the pay screeners receive.

One further point of note:

"Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody,"

I don�t know if we don�t trust anybody, but given our security forces� tendency to handcuff/arrest/taser/shoot anyone who gives them even slightest bit of trouble, if that, I would say that it is to some extent reasonable as to why we have a hard time trusting them.

Probably pointless the way things are done, but I can only sit back and dream of the day that they redesign the system to ensure that passengers get from the parking lot to the tarmac in a maximum of 25 minutes rather than the current minimum of (I�m guesstimating here) 45 minutes to an hour and maximums too ridiculous to be believed.