In the wake of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed at tempt to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, President Obama yesterday talked up more advanced technologies as the road to better air security. But what America really needs to do is take a lesson from the security practices at the world's most targeted -- yet arguably most secure -- airport: Israel's Ben Gurion International.
Obama claimed, "There is no silver bullet to securing the thousands of flights" each day. In fact, the Israeli methods are proven.
Ben Gurion has the same x-ray machines and metal detectors as other major airports, but what makes security there different is the human component: highly trained personnel who observe, question and understand the behavioral patterns of passengers -- and who know when something is out of the ordinary and merits closer observation.
All US travelers remove their shoes when going through airport security thanks to Richard Reid -- who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. But Reid had also flown El Al, Israel's national airline, from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv that July. At Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, the Israelis asked him routine questions -- and found something about him to be suspicious so they searched his bags and his person. When they found nothing, they let him board the plane -- but moved him to the back of the aircraft and put an armed sky marshal in the seat next to him.
In January 2001, I arrived at Ben Gurion several hours before my flight to the US and sat on a bench outside the main terminal, hoping to get some sun. I soon noticed several men in plainclothes walking by me every few minutes. After roughly 35 minutes, two men approached and asked what I was doing there, where I came from, when my flight was and why I was at the airport so early -- "We are asking you this because of security. You must understand that people normally do not sit on these benches for more than 30 minutes."
The Israelis weren't profiling my race or religion, but my behavior -- just as they later profiled Reid, a British citizen with a Western name. Behavioral profiling has prevented many terrorist attacks against Israel and has saved countless lives.
If the Israelis had screened the passengers of Northwest Flight 253, Abdulmutallab probably wouldn't have been allowed to fly -- and he almost certainly would not have come anywhere near detonating the device hidden on his person. Nor is there even a chance that someone could go into a restricted area at Ben Gurion without being found, closing down the airport and grounding all flights for six hours -- as happened at Newark Liberty Airport on Jan. 3.
Installing more high-tech equipment won't solve our security problem because the attack on Northwest was a result of human failure, not a technological malfunction. To make our airports as secure as Ben Gurion, we must train personnel to ask basic questions and to recognize unusual responses and behaviors before letting passengers check in for their flights. It's perfectly reasonable to ask why a passenger traveling on an international flight or extended trip has no luggage or why someone would purchase a ticket with roughly $3,000 cash, as Abdulmutallab did.
Israel has had sky marshals on flights to and from Tel Aviv since the 1960s and no plane flying from Ben Gurion has ever been hijacked. In the wake of 9/11 and Reid's "shoe bombing" attempt, there is absolutely no excuse for not putting sky marshals on every flight into, out of and within the United States.
Some say that behavioral profiling presents a potential for maltreatment of passengers, but terrorists will adapt their techniques to avoid detection by new technology, so profiling must still be used on top of all the machines to cover any possible danger. In case someone still manages to slip through the cracks, travelers should be able to rest assured that armed sky marshals, acting as the last line of defense, will protect them.
Before investing in extremely expensive equipment, the United States should invest in training programs for airport personnel and sky marshals -- and hire Israeli security experts to show us how to do it right.