By Daneilla Cheslow
Image Attribute: Ben Gurion International Airport / Source: Airways News
TEL AVIV - European countries are consulting Israeli security
experts for advice after the deadly attacks on the main airport and the subway
system in Brussels, according to a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
“There is an increased interest in Europe in Israeli know-how and
technology,” said Emmanuel Nahshon.
Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport is among the most secure in the world.
About 16 million passengers travel through the Tel Aviv airport a year,
according to Airports Authority Spokesman Ofer Lefler. A string of hijackings
and a shooting at the airport in the 1970s prompted Israel to undertake
stringent measures based on layers of protection, meaning each passenger must
pass through multiple levels of scrutiny before he or she even reaches the
check-in hall.
The perimeter of Ben-Gurion Airport is secured with radar,
security forces, cameras and automatic license-plate scanners that check every
vehicle entering the area. Security officers in uniform and undercover monitor
the doorways to the terminal. Cameras, hidden and in plain sight, provide extra
surveillance. And inside, airport staff ask travelers exhaustive questions
about their itineraries, their personal backgrounds, and their luggage.
Pini Schiff, former director of security at Israel’s Ben-Gurion
Airport, said the Brussels attacks showed serious gaps in Belgian security and
intelligence. Had the three assailants approached the Tel Aviv airport, “they
would be stopped where the vehicles are entering Ben-Gurion area. And this is
11 kilometers before the terminal building.”
In Brussels, the March 21 attack “was done easily,” he said.
Image Attribute: At least 31 people were killed and 270 injured in
the attacks on the Brussels airport and a subway station on March 22. 2016 /
lesoir.be (citizen journalist)
In the wake of the Brussels attacks that killed at least 31
people, airports in Europe and the United States tightened their security.
Israel did not have to tighten its airport security, Lefler said. Flights from
Europe to Tel Aviv were briefly suspended on March 22 and then quickly
reinstated.
Israel’s airport -- named after the nation’s first prime minister,
David Ben-Gurion -- is a lifeline for a nation with two hostile neighbors,
Syria and Lebanon, and a cold peace with Egypt and Jordan. Most Israelis travel
further afield, to Europe, North America, and other countries.
In the summer of 2014, during Israel’s war with Hamas, the Islamic
group notched a victory when American and European airlines suspended flights
to Tel Aviv after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a home near the
airport. During that war, militants in Gaza fired thousands of rockets into
Israel, while Israel responded with air strikes and a ground invasion. More
than 2,200 Palestinians died in the 50-day war, the majority of whom were
civilians, while 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians were killed.
Schiff said he has consulted a European nation on airport security
in the past. He declined to name the country. He said that many of Israel’s
methods could be applied in Europe, though they would require adjustments to be
effective on a large number of passengers. Last year, more than 23 million
passengers traveled through Zaventem, the Brussels airport targeted by suicide
bombers. London, Paris, and Amsterdam each handle more than double that
volume.
However, Arab travelers, journalists, pro-Palestinian activists,
and others have complained Israeli security policy is too rigorous and rests on
racial profiling.
Diana Buttu, a lawyer and Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent,
said security officers always take her aside for about two hours of extra
questioning. They carefully examine the contents of her luggage, usually
subject her to a strip search, and inquire about her life and work before
continuing on to examine her hair, ears, and mouth, she said.
Buttu, who holds dual Canadian citizenship, said she has never
faced such checks in other airports outside of Israel.
“I fear that by Europe instituting the same rules that
Israel is instituting, it’s going to lead down the same path that Israel has
led down to, which is wholesale racism,” she said. “I am profiled in Israel
because I am not Jewish in what is classified as a Jewish state.”
Airports Authority Spokesman Lefler said “every action we take
here is for one goal: the securing of passengers and aircraft.
“The check is equal for all, without a difference of religion,
color, race, or gender,” Lefler added.
Schiff, the former security head, acknowledged that Israel
profiles passengers for more intensive searches. “Profiling as we do it in
Israel -- we can’t copy it to Europe because of the number of passengers, but
it can be done in other ways.”
In 2014, an Israeli parliament panel inquired into complaints that the airport was
too invasive in its security checks, which can include reading passengers’
e-mails and entering their Facebook accounts. At the time, the airport
authority’s legal adviser, Aryeh Shaham, told AP that fewer than 5 percent of
Arab travelers are inspected in Ben-Gurion Airport, and said the authority
receives more complaints from Jewish travelers than Christian or Muslim Arabs.
With Israeli technical help, however, European countries should
also brace themselves for bravado.
Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz told Israel
Radio on March 23, “If the Belgians continue to eat chocolate and enjoy the
good life and to look like big democrats and liberals and not decide that some
of the Muslims there are terror organizers -- they will not be able to fight
them.”
His comment sparked ridicule from opposition lawmaker Shelly
Yechimovich of the Labor party, who tweeted, “The government has announced a
solution to minimizing terrorism: stop eating chocolate.”
Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with
the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste
400, Washington DC 20036.