El Al does it because they have had real hijackings for many years, they also do it because of an assault by terrorists in one of their airports. They even prevented a bombing of an aircraft. The difference is the Israeli's do it right and they have real layers of security in place. A lot more than X-raying luggage and badly trained TSO's and BDO's, several of the layers occur before you even get inside the actual airport. The TSA was created in haste and their solutions are reactive, not proactive

During the late 90's and early 00's my father flew to Israel regularly on business. One of the things he saw was during a refueling stop in Europe, El Al personnel surrounded the aircraft and were armed with automatic weapons, they were watching anyone coming towards the aircraft. Lets see that happen at American airports.