Originally Posted by
14940674
I am sure there are many people like you who negotiate Israel's airports every day. In Tel Aviv the security agents handle passengers with grace and respect, so their nervousness is not exacerbated or mistaken for a threat. We can only hope the TSA approaches this in similar fashion.
I was very nervous when I arrived at TLV, as I'd been in RUH the week before and this was my first visit to Israel. I got a number of questions (unsurprisingly), and at one point I needed to get some documentation out of my bag to show that I was going to be speaking at the Technion. I was apparently so visibly nervous that the agent told me not to be nervous, that this was just routine. Nothing he'd done had made me nervous, just the anticipation of it all. Much better after that.
Originally Posted by
neko
Umm. I don't think this is modeled after El Al....
Not unless the TSA staff has suddenly become a lot better educated and lot better trained. And the US has suddenly become both much more homogeneous and more tolerant of racial, religious, and socio-economic profiling. And there's a lot less air travel...
I will have to say I was impressed by the education of the Israeli security guy. As part of the "Is he making this up?" phase, he wanted to know what sort of mathematics I do, and he actually made a comment that showed he was familiar with some of the area. I can't imagine getting that from a TSA agent.