israel is obsessed with security. arguably understandably so,
considering the history of terrorism against it. but i think sometimes things
go a little overboard. take security at ben gurion airport. if you so much as
look at a security agent wrong they’ll pull you aside for a deeply probing
questioning session. one level of security exists entering the airport area,
and another before entering the terminal building. most tourists don’t ever
even know about most of it, as they are waved through. but you get it if you’re
alone and/or if you have “questionable” stamps in your passport, and/or if you
have darker skin. the next layer is a very thorough questioning before checking
in. for me, these discussions almost always devolved into them asking me why i
had been to so many muslim countries. almost every time it was something like:
“why would you visit egypt when you could visit (insert european country)
instead?” they would keep probing, basically making me explain why i think
muslims are people like the rest of us. this stench of bigotry was so
predictable that it made me dread having to go to the airport. and normally
airports are my favorite place ever. after all this they’ll give you a sticker
with a number between one and six, six being the highest security “risk.”
israelis and families get ones and twos, while arabs and those traveling alone
get a five or six. so i pretty much always got a six.
sometimes they’ll deem it necessary to take you to another room for a
more intimate check. during one of my visits to this facility in the basement
of the terminal, they had me strip to my underwear and took my documents and
wallet to another room. then they probed between my naked legs with a cold
metal detector. as if they couldn’t already tell that there wasn’t much there. and
they made me pull open my undergarment for a peek at the ol genital region. security
is fine, but at that point it became clear to me that this enterprise is about
more than just security. it is about making people feel small and dehumanized.
i’m pretty lucky i only went through that once; many who are traveling completely
legallly go through it every single time, and 99% of palestinians are never
ever allowed to travel through ben-gurion airport. notably, israel often bars
entry even to american citizens without cause other than their ethnicity. they
have also been known to have travelers suspected of being activists chose
between logging in to their email on government computers or be deported.
the next step of the security process used to be a detailed search
through one’s baggage. in the last tear they’ve moved that to behind the scenes
due to numerous complaints about people’s personal effects being paraded around
in the open and obvious racial profiling. then, after checking in there is
another regular security check of your person. the rigor of this is determined
by your “risk” number. everyone needs to be at the airport no less than three
hours early for all this. security almost always took the vast majority of that
time for me. but i’m not complaining – it only just helps a person realize what
other people, namely palestinians, go through every single day. some will
believe that all that security is justified, and that’s fine. but i stopped
believing that when they made me strip.
