Is This What We Really Want?

By Lisa Beyer

Grasping for a model of how to better protect against terrorist hijackings, some commentators are suggesting that the U.S. adopt Israel's practices. That system has worked pretty well, especially given what an attractive target Israel's airports and airline are to terrorists. Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel's only international airport, has an enviable record. No flight out of there has ever been commandeered. A 1974 TWA flight originating in Tel Aviv was blown up, but only after taking on passengers in Athens. Only once, in 1968, was the national carrier, El Al, successfully hijacked.

How do the Israelis do it? For one thing, El Al puts at least one armed, plainclothes sky marshal on all its flights. One such agent foiled a hijack attempt over Holland in 1970. During El Al flights, the cockpit door, made of reinforced steel strong enough to repel fire from a handgun, remains locked.

On the ground, the Israelis not only use the standard metal detectors and X-ray machines but also lean on teams of young agents, dressed in blue slacks and white shirts, who interrogate, to varying degrees, every passenger departing Ben Gurion and, in airports abroad, anyone flying El Al. The questions can include: "When did you book this flight?" "Who paid for the ticket?" "Why are you traveling?" "Whom did you meet while in Israel?" Business travelers are asked for documents proving they actually are pursuing a particular deal. Journalists are asked to reveal the stories they are going to cover. One agent will ask questions for a while, then a second will ask many of the same. The two will compare notes, and one or the other will ask a third batch of queries. This process often takes 20 minutes; it can take two hours.

The idea is to turn up inconsistencies in a terrorist's made-up story (or at least rattle him into a panic) and also expose individuals who may be unknowing accomplices. In 1986, El Al security at London's Heathrow airport discovered a bomb sewn into the suitcase of an unwitting Irish woman after she revealed that she had had a romance with a Jordanian, who had bought her the bag.

Even to innocents, the interrogation is unsettling. It entails a violation of privacy that most Americans would find objectionable. Beyond that, the system requires a degree of ethnic profiling that would be viewed here as bigoted. Even with the moderate traffic at Ben Gurion, the Israelis can't grill everyone at length. So Israeli Jews get only pro forma questions like "Who packed your bag?" Foreign Jews get a relatively light going over. Foreign Gentiles get half an hour or so. And Arabs, including Arab citizens of Israel, get a full inquisition.

--By Lisa Beyer