People seem to think that the El Al security system is based on a simple kind of racial profiling, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. All passengers are interviewed before boarding, and asked a lengthy series of questions designed to make a potential terrorist nervous. I know — I’ve been to Israel and I’ve gone through this process myself.

Israel and El Al are only able to use the systems they use because it’s a very small airline, with only about two dozen airplanes in the fleet. And the number of passengers who pass through Israeli security is vastly less than the United States has to deal with.

The techniques used by El Al are not transferrable to the US; there’s a massive difference in scale, and it’s not possible to do in-depth interviews with every passenger.