Middle East - TLV Security Sticker Number Dechiffering?

I travel to Israel frequently, both for business and privatly: I was born in Europe and hold an EU passport, but I am jewish and have most of my relatives still alive in Israel. I am also in the process of establishing business partners for my company there. As a matter of fact I am even in pre-aliyah process (for those who don't know this is the process of obtaining Israeli residency - and even being granted the right to citizenship if desired - on the basis of Jewishness).

Both entering and exiting has always been extremely smooth; even though I ususally travel with my partner (since 10 years ago) who is non-Jewish. A few routine questions about our trip, where we stayed, and about my Jewish realatives in Israel (names, where they live etc - even if I wasn't visiting them during a very short business trip).

On my last trip it was totally different. I this time I was travelling alone (never had an impression before that that might araise suspicion?), and I was not even given a chanse to explain let alone proove my Jewishness (which usually immediatley speeds up the process...) A search of the more serious type - which has been described so many times here that I do not need to go through it again) was conducted. I have no idea of why- I guess that there is no way to find out either - but I did notice one thing:

All my previous security stickers have all been level 2. Now I received a level 5. From what I heard 2 is the second "lightest" security level- whereas 5 is what is usually assigned to palestinians fitting the highest security threat profile !?!

I just wonder if anyone can tell me if there is a truth behind the rumours about what the numbers on the security stickers stand for. And, if so:

1)what the different levels are and -
2)if what I later heard, rumourwise, about the "5" is true - what would possibly have triggered that classification?!?
3)is the classification constant - in other word is it "stored" somewhere, could it be of disadvantage for me in the future in Israel- or is it just an ad hoc decision for the individual flight.

In the future maybe I should always carry my proof of jewishness from my disporah congregration with me?!? (I do not have a Jewish last name since my father - whom my mother divorced after only two years was not Jewish... so of course there is no way for them to guess trhat I am Jewish if they don't ask... ) Question asked half jokingly, half seriously, but I am not an enemy of Israel, my brother as well as my cousins proudly served in the IDF and... Not that it maybe matters in the end, but the experience was far from nice and I sure would not want it to be repeated.

Maybe you were randomally selected for a deeper screening? That can happen from time to time. I am non Jewish and I was in the West Bank march this year and I was selected as lvl 3 as far as I remember. I don't know what the stickers mean since I don't have any idea of the hebrew langauge, but I guess as you say they indicate your lvl of threat.

My last trip back to SIN via IST on TK, my suitcase was full of notes and photocopy extracts of books on Hamas, Hezbollah etc. Didn't matter that the books were obviously from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem library or that the Arabic textbook that I had was written in Hebrew and published by the Academon school bookshop at Hebrew U.

Add to that having a passport with Saudi residency stamps and Gulf visas in my possession (not the one I use for Israel) and me deciding to stir the pot further by adding that I've been to the West Bank regularly, got me and my luggage a pretty thorough going over. I was there more than 3hrs in advance (the checkin counter wasn't even open yet) and I only got to the check-in counter barely an hour before the flight. When I was brought to one of the inside rooms for the detailed inspection of the clothing I was wearing and my personal effects (mobile phone etc.), I was half expecting to hear the snap of a rubber glove being put on and a southern US drawl "Y'best bendover, boayh" :p

OTOH, when I did a trip to Paris a month or so later, the staff seemed to remember me and the inspection was more routine, even almost perfuctory in comparison. But then the guys at the second-line of inspection just before immigration got twitchy at my Arabic textbook. With the nervousness the Israeli airport security show at the first sign of anything Arabic, no wonder few Israelis speak or understand what is supposed to be the second official language of the State of Israel, and more pertinently the language of their major national threats (better to know your enemy and all that).

From what I can gather anything remotely arabic in your passport sets the alarm bells ringing. I got sticker '5' in February and my only 'crime' it would seem was having the audacity to visit Dubai! I think you need sticker '6' before you get the private room treatment; however, I was interogated about the origin of my shoes! When I told them I had purchased them in the UK from Marks & Specner (a well known Jewish firm) the officers seemed to visibly relax!

I am a very frequent business travel to Israel as well (at least one week a month), I am an American, and I also look and act like a true Texan. I have always gotten “5’s” and usually takes just under 2 hours to clear security, every time. My business client just enrolled in the Ben Gurion security program for swift passage and this has made a HUGE difference, I am now a “2” and am in the gates usually within 30mins!

I thought “5” were the worst, but I did notice a “6” sticker on the x-ray machine as I was passing through last night. I would be very interested in learning the level definitions.

From what I can gather anything remotely arabic in your passport sets the alarm bells ringing. I got sticker '5' in February and my only 'crime' it would seem was having the audacity to visit Dubai! I think you need sticker '6' before you get the private room treatment; however, I was interogated about the origin of my shoes! When I told them I had purchased them in the UK from Marks & Specner (a well known Jewish firm) the officers seemed to visibly relax!

I think private room is by invitation only :p.

Anyways I'm leaving Israel on 29 July on a late afternoon/evening TK flight. Since I will undoubtedly have some material in my shipping cartons that will trigger the alarm bells, I'll prolly be there like 5-6 hrs earlier, especially since I would likely need to repack after they ETD every page of my books and notes. The poor girls on that shift will definitely be earning their pay/NS allowance that day.

I've been to Israel many many times over the past few years and I've never gotten anything other than a 1.

My most recent trip with my bf, he insisted we shouldn't speak hebrew with them, I usually try to make it through as much as possible in hebrew, and it took a lot longer in english until we started in hebrew then she was OK. But other than that its been < 5 minutes every time (that time was ~10-15).