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.
