Have you actually had this happen to you? I have flown to and from Israel about 6 times and have never had my carryon or checked luggage searched, except on one occasion. One time, on a BA flight from LHR to TLV, they set up tables to enter the departure gate area and searched everyone's carryon bags. Not based on profile, just EVERYONE. Then, on that same flight, before we took off, one of my two suitcases was one of 3 bags randomly picked to be opened and searched in the gate area.

From my observations of the checkin areas in Tel Aviv, opening suitcases is the exception, not the rule. Asking everyone a series of directed questions that WORK is the rule. Of course, based on the answers, I do not doubt that they take you into a booth and search everything and question you more seriously. But they can't do this to everyone, and they are pretty smart about who they pinpoint.

Aside from the questioning before checkin, leaving Tel-Aviv airport is much like any other International airport: boarding pass check to get through immigration (to leave - they want to catch draft dodgers among other things, so they have a checkpoint to exit), then normal X ray and security (everything goes through the X ray machine), and then you are in the concourse with duty free, restaurants, clubs, etc.