Sheesh!!
Has anyone out there ever flown El-Al?? I'd say they are the safest and most security conscious airline...certainly inspire more confidence than the TSA and most American carriers.
Had this happened on the ground before take-off on an El-Al flight, I have no doubt that the man would have been taken off and questioned and/or the flight would have been canceled.
Only last week there were reports of terrorist cells conducting surveillance on El-Al crews in Toronto (
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1017894.html). If there are terrorists surveying airline crews in Toronto while planning an attack, then I'd certainly be concerned about surveillance in Athens as well. I can recall a story from a few years back when an El-Al pilot canceled a flight because the limo driver from the hotel to the airport was behaving suspiciously.
Was the FA over-reacting? maybe a little...tearing out the page does seem like a bit much. She could have confiscated the journal until the end of the flight and given it to the TSA. But maybe the old man was working for a terrorist cell that has cracked the airline's servers and is planning to blackmail a FA or wants to send in a disguised impostor to bring down the flight.
Had I been on the flight, this man's presence would have made me VERY uncomfortable. But maybe I am just paranoid after living in Israel for awhile!