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Israel offers airline security cooperation with U.S.

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, June 18, 2002

Israel is offering aviation security cooperation with both the U.S. government and airliners.

The cooperation is meant to share Israeli know-how and systems to prevent insurgency attacks on airports, airliners and related facilities.

"We are not smarter," Israeli Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh said. "But we are in a position to give good advice because the permanent attacks on our civil aviation forced us to be innovative, to develop and to improve the technologies, the doctrine of how we defend our civil aviation. And our most important achievement is that in spite of all the recurrent attempts to hijack El Al airplanes, to explode it in various ways, Israelis are not afraid to fly."

The conference began in Washington on Sunday and runs until Tuesday. Sneh has been joined by leading Israeli counter-insurgency experts who discussed concepts to bolster security at airports and on airliners.

The conference invited such senior U.S. officials as National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Transportation Undersecretary John Magaw.

Israeli and U.S. officials discussed such methods as profiling risk passengers, airport enhancements, aircraft and cargo security and sky marshal security. In the past, U.S. officials said federal law would not allow such Israeli methods as ethnic profiles.

Earlier this year, the Boeing Co. and Israel's El Al airliner ended plans for cooperation on aviation security. Officials said Boeing concluded that El Al's method of screening passengers would not work in the United States.

"The whole issue of profiling should be done in a flexible way," Sneh said on Monday. "And you should not be afraid of this word, profiling. The purpose is to save lives. The focus of the screening is on the luggage, and it's done through very sophisticated techniques, which cover most of the dangerous devices and explosives."

Israeli companies also presented security conceptions on border security in Paris, where the Eurosatory land forces exhibition began on Monday. Elta Electronics Industries, a subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries, is presenting a range of integrative solutions designed for the protection of ground, coastal and aerial borders. The company has designed turnkey solutions based on electronic sensors, radars and unmanned air vehicles.

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