israel is obsessed with security. arguably understandably so, considering the history of terrorism against it. but i think sometimes things go a little overboard. take security at ben gurion airport. if you so much as look at a security agent wrong they’ll pull you aside for a deeply probing questioning session. one level of security exists entering the airport area, and another before entering the terminal building. most tourists don’t ever even know about most of it, as they are waved through. but you get it if you’re alone and/or if you have “questionable” stamps in your passport, and/or if you have darker skin. the next layer is a very thorough questioning before checking in. for me, these discussions almost always devolved into them asking me why i had been to so many muslim countries. almost every time it was something like: “why would you visit egypt when you could visit (insert european country) instead?” they would keep probing, basically making me explain why i think muslims are people like the rest of us. this stench of bigotry was so predictable that it made me dread having to go to the airport. and normally airports are my favorite place ever. after all this they’ll give you a sticker with a number between one and six, six being the highest security “risk.” israelis and families get ones and twos, while arabs and those traveling alone get a five or six. so i pretty much always got a six.
sometimes they’ll deem it necessary to take you to another room for a more intimate check. during one of my visits to this facility in the basement of the terminal, they had me strip to my underwear and took my documents and wallet to another room. then they probed between my naked legs with a cold metal detector. as if they couldn’t already tell that there wasn’t much there. and they made me pull open my undergarment for a peek at the ol genital region. security is fine, but at that point it became clear to me that this enterprise is about more than just security. it is about making people feel small and dehumanized. i’m pretty lucky i only went through that once; many who are traveling completely legally go through it every single time, and 99% of palestinians are never allowed to travel through ben-gurion airport at all. notably, israel often bars entry even to american citizens without cause other than their ethnicity. they have also been known to have travelers suspected of being activists chose between logging in to their email on government computers or be deported.
the next step of the security process used to be a detailed search through one’s baggage. in the last year they’ve moved that to behind the scenes due to numerous complaints about people’s personal effects being paraded around in the open and obvious racial profiling. then, after checking in there is another regular security check of your person. the rigor of this is determined by your “risk” number. everyone needs to be at the airport no less than three hours early for all this. security almost always took the vast majority of that time for me. but i’m not complaining – it only just helps a person realize what other people, namely palestinians, go through every single day. some will believe that all that security is justified, and that’s fine. but i stopped believing that when they made me strip.