Each new terrorist attack reveals new dynamics, problems and invokes new practices to avoid what is predictable, but difficult to contain. After the failed Paris-Miami bombing in 2001, we are forced to take off our shoes at the airport. Since 2006, following the failed project of transatlantic line bombings, containers larger than 100ml have been banned. In the aftermath of the crash of the German Wings flight in March 2015, it was realized that it was precisely a post 11/XNUMX regulation that prevented the co-pilot from entering the locked cockpit from the inside.
Following the Paris attacks in November 2015, the European Council approved the use of the Pnr (Passenger Name Record) system for terrorism-related crimes by obliging airlines to hand over passenger data to European countries. After the latest attacks in Brussels in March, however, there has been talk of the need to adopt the Ben Gurion model at airports.
Behavioral analysis
This security system is composed of at least seven layers that begin even before entering the airport: Inspection of the arrival vehicle; preliminary questions and attribution of the "danger" code; baggage screening; baggage opening and tests to detect traces of explosives; check in; security check and document check. The last three steps are the norm at most international airports. Israel is distinguished by steps 1-4 which still take place before you check-in.
Not everyone gets the same treatment. The cardinal point of the Ben Gurion model is that it is based on the observation of people and not on objects prohibited at the airport. The airport is dotted with personnel trained in behavior analysis. There are no random checks like at US airports. The questions may seem utterly nonsensical, but they serve to detect inconsistencies and lies.
Ethical and practical issues
The ease or otherwise in passing from one layer to another is determined by a real analysis of the "profile" of each passenger, primarily determined by ethnic/religious affiliation. Arabs, Muslims and then journalists, aid workers, etc. they undergo all steps and may even face additional screening, interrogation and body searches.
Beyond the obvious ethical issues, the Tel Aviv airport model, with 16 million passengers in 2015, is hardly applicable to other airports such as, for example, Atlanta, the busiest in the United States and in the world, with 100 million passengers in the same year. Tel Aviv is a small airport compared to other capitals whose security system focuses on racial profiling and eye contact.
Model difficult to export
For those who have had the opportunity to reside in Israel for longer than a simple holiday, what is most striking about this model is that it is not applied only to airports. This type of system, based on hyper-security and racial profiling, can be traced in all public places in the country: railway and bus stations, shopping centres, entertainment venues. It is a state of mind based on the constant fear of an attack and which justifies the violation and/or suspension of human rights (privacy, freedom, movement). Such a model is inapplicable to European railway stations as proposed in the aftermath of the thwarted attack on the Thalys Amsterdam-Paris train.
Those responsible for the attack at Brussels airport last March detonated explosive vests before entering the check-in area, effectively shifting the risk of an attack outside the traditional "red zone". The point is exactly this: the Ben Gurion model "works" precisely because the whole country is organized like the Tel Aviv airport or rather as a permanent "red zone" made up of checkpoints, checkpoints and a massive presence of soldiers who have almost no ethical-juridical limitations.
Extending airport security to public spaces would have an insurmountable cost. In financial terms, Israel spends 10 times more per passenger on airport security than the United States. And in psychological terms, installing in people's minds the idea that they are nowhere safe and that they need an Orwellian "Big Brother" is a very high price that Israeli citizens will pay forever.
