Originally Posted by
Bandicoot
OK, I bow to the superior wisdom of the forum. I did say, "if there's no rush" less than 3 hours might be OK. I have no idea whether what I experienced was highly atypical or not. FWIW, I'll say that our local friends and relatives (presumably somewhat familiar with the usual situation at TLV) thought that 3 hours was overkill.
It really all depends on whether or not you will be going through "extra" questioning, for most locals the answer is no, for foreigners/tourists it's harder to gauge, and a single experience doesn't say much.
As I am a relatively frequent visitor to TLV (several times per year) I know "my profile" is "safe" and I usually only return the car about 2hrs before, when I fly with Mrs. Ditto or other friends/colleagues I don't take the risk and arrive 3hrs before.
BTW, it's not very different to other airports, in summer time KL advised PAX to arrive 3hrs before to AMS, for me I always arrive 1.5hrs before non-schengen and even less for schengen flights as I know my way around and can use SkyPriority, but if someone else is joining me or I fly non-skyteam airline I might arrive earlier than that (based on my experience of rush hours etc.)