Could implementing Israeli airport security actually save Americans money?
I've been arguing for years that Americans would be safer at a lower cost if they adopted Israeli style airport security. Now, in a scathing indictment of the TSA and its creators (Congress with enhancements by the Obama administration), the same argument is being made by John Tierny.
It was the federal government, not the private screeners, that set
the policy allowing small knives and box cutters to be brought onto
planes. Federal guidelines prevented airlines from arming pilots and
reinforcing cockpit doors. The feds also stopped the private security
firms from using an existing system to identify high-risk passengers,
which would have singled out some of the hijackers for special
screening.
Instead of learning from those mistakes, the Senate doubled down on
central planning, voting unanimously to turn airport screening into a
federal monopoly. The only intelligent deliberation occurred in the
House of Representatives, where Republicans actually listened to experts
from countries with considerable experience in aviation terrorism.
Israel and European nations had learned the hard way that good security
requires a division of responsibility. An independent watchdog is
essential to ensure that screeners are doing their job, and the obvious
candidate for that role is the federal government. But that means that
someone else has to do the screening. The watchdog can’t watch itself.
House Republicans heeded the experts’ advice, and they had the votes
to trump House Democrats yearning for more federal workers. The House
passed a bill to establish a system modeled on the one used in Israel,
Canada, and Europe: each airport would run its own screening system, and
the feds would have wide authority to set standards, monitor
performance, and mandate improvements. When it came time to reconcile
the competing bills, however, Senate Democrats stood firm, and the House
Republicans were denounced for putting ideology above national
security. One of the loudest critics was New York Times columnist
Paul Krugman, who was such an ardent cheerleader for the TSA that he
deserves to have the line at Newark Airport named after him. “The
right’s fanatical distrust of government is the central fact of American
politics, even in a time of terror,” Krugman wrote. Exploiting the
public affection for firefighters after September 11, Krugman argued
that the Republicans’ anti-TSA ideology would logically call for the
elimination of the New York City Fire Department because fire protection
should be a purely private responsibility.
I actually part company with Tierny over the Europeans. In many ways, their security is worse than the Americans. First, like the Americans, they don't profile. Second, they don't screen their screeners well enough, with the result that their airport security is staffed by people who have gone on to commit terrorist attacks. Third, they don't take advantage of the possibility of keeping people with connecting flights in sterile areas, so they don't have to be re-screened. Instead, they throw you out of the sterile area (in many instances, even if you're changing planes in the same terminal), requiring you to go through security again.
Last month, I was 'randomly selected' at Paris-DeGaulle (despite only connecting there, and despite being an elite flyer and old enough not to fit anyone's terrorist profile) for 'extra screening' on my way to board a flight to Philadelphia. I was practically strip searched, and the idiot went through every one of the nearly 20 pockets in my backpack with obviously no clue of what it was he was supposed to look for.
So, no, I don't want a European system. I want an Israeli one where people who have training in psychology profile passengers instead of randomly picking people out of a line like me or like the lady at the top of this post.
Like all government monopolies, the TSA blames its failures on lack
of funding. But it’s already spending way too much, as demonstrated in a
congressional study
comparing TSA screeners in Los Angeles with non-TSA screeners in San
Francisco, one of the few airports allowed to run its own system,
contracting with a private company. If LAX switched to the San Francisco
model, the study concluded, it could cut its screening costs by more
than 40 percent.
The San Francisco private company’s screeners received the same
salary and benefits as TSA screeners, but they were so much better
trained and deployed that each one processed 65 percent more passengers
than a TSA screener in Los Angeles. They apparently enjoyed better
working conditions, too, because they were much less likely to quit
their jobs. And in tests by federal investigators, they were three times
better at detecting contraband.
As far as I am aware, Israel's system is all government run (although, come to think of it, I don't recall ever hearing that they went on strike, which all government unions do from time to time). But the key (other than the profiling) is that Israel's system has redundancy. They have more than one shot at catching terrorists. There's security before you ever get near the airport. If you arrive in a taxi, the security guard nearly always rolls down the window and asks where you're coming from - to hear your accent. If they're suspicious, the car is pulled over and searched. There's a security guard standing outside each door to the terminal, randomly pulling people over. You wait in a long line that moves VERY quickly to screen your checked baggage. Before they screen your checked baggage, they ask who packed it and where was it, and do you know why they're asking that question (Anne Murphy). They're looking for your manner (because they're trained in psychology) more than your answers. They always ask you if anyone gave you something to take with you. Usually, I just say no. A few months ago, I brought back a Torah scroll for someone and I spilled the beans to El Al (not Heathrow) security in London. They asked me who gave it to me and how well I knew the person. They were satisfied with my answers and let it go.
And then there's the security screening you're all used to abroad, which splits into 15-20 lines, most of which are not more than 10 minutes long. I usually get through all the security screening in 30-45 minutes and I have no priority status in Ben Gurion. That's no longer than anyplace else (one of the frequent excuses I hear why the Israeli system cannot be implemented elsewhere).
In Europe, when I'm not checking a bag, it takes about the same time (although in London that's only because I'm fast-tracked as an elite flyer with a British Airways partner - Heathrow is one of the worst airports in which to transfer if you have no privileges).
In the US, they don't screen checked bags until after they get them, and I get through security more quickly in most airports because (a) I'm an elite flyer (exception - Philadelphia where there's no such thing) or (b) I get TSA pre-cleared (always happens in Boston, usually in Chicago, rarely in Philadelphia).
TSA clearly needs to be reformed. It won't happen with Obama in power (he allowed them to unionize in 2011, which is what's preventing more airports from opting out) and it won't happen if Hillary Clinton wins the election either.
Outrage: US to return Iraqi Jewish artifacts to Iraq and not to Jews
The National Archives in Washington is opening an exhibit of Iraqi Jewish artifacts on October 11. The artifacts were rescued from the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Saddam Hussein's intelligence service, in 2003, during the Second Gulf War. Incredibly, the United States of Obama has agreed to return the artifacts to Iraq, rather than to their lawful owners, by June 2014.
After American forces entered Baghdad in May 2003, the head of the
Jewish and Israel section of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat (intelligence
agency) came to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), offering information
about Saddam’s intelligence operations against Israel and Jews. He did
this in order to curry favor. Former Iraqi officials frequently came to
opposition groups to tell their stories, in return for which they would
get “safe passage” documents stating that since they were cooperating
with post-Saddam authorities, they should not be harmed.
The tipster visited the INC to talk about the rumored Jewish archives
hidden in the basement of the Mukhabarat headquarters. After his visit,
INC chairman Ahmed Chalabi called Judy Miller, the former New York Times
reporter then embedded with a mobile unit looking for WMD, and me. I
was an Arabic/Hebrew speaking policy analyst with the Office of Net
Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, then assigned to
the Coalition Provisional Authority, at the time.
We rushed over to talk with Chalabi, who told us that a former
Mukhabarat employee reported that a huge treasure trove of Iraqi Jewish
and Israeli material was amassed in the Mukhabarat building, and that he
was prepared to show us where it was located. He also said there was an
ancient copy of the Talmud written on leather or parchment.
Miller and I then went off to the Mukhabarat building with the former Saddam officer and an INC contingent.
The tipster indicated from outside the building where in the basement
the Jewish and Israel sections were located. Then — he promptly
disappeared. Despite the bombed-out structure’s instability, looters
were overrunning the building. Danger was everywhere.
We were, in fact, standing beside a large metal device which had
lodged itself halfway into the ground. We later learned that this live,
undetonated bomb had penetrated through three or four stories of the
building and destroyed the building’s water system. It had pierced the
wall almost at ground level. We saw, through the hole it made, that the
Jewish and Israel sections were flooded.
We went around to the building’s main entrance and descended only
halfway down a basement staircase, blocked by water which had risen
about halfway up. Several WMD team members waded into the water and
entered the Israel section. They found pictures of the Dome of the Rock,
a Soviet map of Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor, and a sign in Arabic
which read: “Who will be the one to send the 40th missile to Israel?”
(This referred to the fact that during the Kuwait war, Iraq had sent 39
missiles toward Israel.)
The WMD team then proceeded down the hall, found the Jewish section, and carried out religious books and a tiq (the wooden/metal box which holds Torahs). These items proved to be only a tiny example of what we were to find later.
Many Iraqis with whom we spoke about the discovery told us to get the
material out of the country as soon as possible before it became public
knowledge. That way, Iraqi Jewry could have its patrimony, and no Iraqi
politician could be held responsible for having let the Jews take the
material.
...
The materials were then flown to Texas where they were
vacuum-freeze-dried, and in Fall 2003 they were brought to the National
Archives. In 2011, the State Department kicked in over $3 million for
stabilizing, digitizing, and packing the material. Again, none of that
would have been possible without the interventions of the people I have
referenced.
Among the items we found in the intelligence headquarters basement: a
400-year-old Hebrew Bible; a 200-year-old Talmud from Vienna; a copy of
the book of Numbers in Hebrew published in Jerusalem in 1972; a Megillat Esther of uncertain date; a Haggadahpublished in Baghdad and edited by the chief rabbi of Baghdad; the Writings of Ketuvim containing books like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Lamentations, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles published in Venice in 1568; a copy of Pirkei Avot, or Ethics of the Fathers, published in Livorno, Italy in 1928 with commentary written with Hebrew letters but in Baghdadi-Judeo Arabic; a luach
(a calendar with lists of duties and prayers for each holy day printed
in Baghdad in 1972); a printed collection of sermons by a rabbi made in
Germany in 1692; thousands of books printed in Vienna, Livorno,
Jerusalem, Izmir, and Vilna; miscellaneous communal records from
1920-1953; lists of male Jewish residents, school records, financial
records, applications for university admissions.
All of this illustrated the history of Baghdadi Jewish community life, a community which is no more.
After Israel became a state in 1948, martial law was declared in Iraq
and many Jews left in the mass exodus in 1950-51. Almost all of those
who remained behind left by the 1970s. They were not allowed to take
much with them.
In 1950-51, they were allowed one suitcase with clothing — sometimes
not even their personal documents — and nothing more. They were forced
to leave everything else behind, including their communal property. For
many years, Jews were not permitted to leave Iraq at all and were
persecuted. With time, the few Jews who remained in Baghdad transferred
what communal holy books and religious articles they had to the one
remaining synagogue which functioned. This was in Batawin, a section of
Baghdad which in the late 1940s was the neighborhood to which upwardly
mobile Jews moved. The remaining Jews stored this property in the
synagogue’s balcony, where the women sat during prayer.
The Jews did not freely relinquish this material. They did it under duress, having no other option.
In 1984, Saddam sent henchmen with trucks to that synagogue. Those
scrolls, records, and books were carted off to a place unknown. Local
Jews who were at the synagogue at that time witnessed this thievery, and
described to me personally how the material was carted off against
their will.
Why did Saddam even care about this material, and why did he keep it
in his intelligence headquarters? Did he think he might gain some
insights into the Jewish mind by doing so? Did he think doing so would
help him defeat the Israelis?
From a Middle Eastern cultural perspective, capturing the archive
makes perfect sense. Humiliation — i.e., shaming another’s personal
reputation — is more important and more powerful than physical
cruelty. From this cultural perspective, by capturing the Jewish
archives, Saddam was humiliating the Jewish people. He was showing how
powerless the Jews were to stop him. By keeping that archive and the
Israel section in the basement of his intelligence headquarters, Saddam
further humiliated the Jews and Israel. And by doing so, Saddam – again,
in Middle Eastern eyes — was also regaining a portion of the honor the
Arabs lost through their constant military defeats at the hands of the
(Jewish) Israelis.
...
It would be as if Germany demanded material looted from German Jewish
communities under the Nazis in German government hands. But even in
this case, the Germans today admit their Nazi crimes against the Jews,
and they have done much to compensate the Jews for German actions.
Moreover, can Iraq even care for this archive?
Iraq now — today — has a basement room of its archives filled with
Torahs. The conditions in which they are kept are deplorable. Moreover,
no one is allowed access to this material. To be sure, the Iraqis have
great difficulty taking care of their ownhistorical and
archival material, so this does not mean that the current Iraqi
government discriminates particularly against the Jewish material in its
possession. The point is they have shown no capability for preserving
such material.
The most logical final resting place for the material is the
Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center outside of Tel Aviv. It is the only
museum in the world dedicated to the history of Iraqi Jewry.
Monday was the yahrtzeit (anniversary of the death) of Rav Aharon Kotler zt"l. Rav Aharon Kotler was sent to America by R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky at the height of World War II, where he founded the Lakewood (NJ) yeshiva, which (I believe) is today the largest yeshiva in the United States.
Unlike the poor Torah in this song, Rav Aharon's Torah did not end up in a museum. It is available to thousands of people all over the world today.
I find this song incredibly sad - so much of our heritage was destroyed and is not properly used anymore. But thank God there are more people studying Torah in Israel today than at any time and any place before.
The song is by Abie Rotenberg from the Journeys albums.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
