[jkardon]

Out of 400+ passengers my daughter, white Jewish girl, was subject to luggage and body search on flight from NYC to Israel while
being on the trip with a group of young Jews just because she honestly admitted having friends from the Middle East during check in! It's not like she has ties with ISIS! Going to college in NYC a person is bound to know people from all over the world. Teenagers (and some adults) call anyone they know on social media "friends", all five thousand of them! Considering the fact that there are 20.7% of Arabs in Israel (according to Wikipedia) do Jews ever cross path with Arabs ? If "yes" - are they on the black list? If they are not - it's double standards! To add insult to the injury my daughter's camera and phone external battery were confiscated because they are electronic devices! What was the justification for that? They didn't give any explanation except that they needed more time to determine they were safe (which they promised to mail to her house but never did - we had to go to airport to pick them up). But she was allowed to keep her phone (thankfully) which is electronic device too. How does the airline know that other passengers's devices don't pose any threat? Obviously the airline doesn't have the proper technology since they couldn't screen our camera and verify that there is nothing inside it, and that scares. The rest of the people on the plane with some being searched as well were allowed to keep all their gadgets just because they weren't as naive as my daughter and kept their mouth shut. I doubt that the rest of 400 passengers didn't know anyone from the Middle East considering the fact that some go to the same college. Does the airline honesty think that terrorists would volunteer the information about their intentions and connections? Or it catches the innocent honest people because it's easier but make it look like they do their job?! Their security check is a big joke if their trained "physiologists" suspected my daughter. It's meant to scare the people who has nothing to hide, trained terrorists would know how to handle the interrogation. And even if they suspected that my daughter could be just a messenger after being thoroughly searched and obviously nothing found and she was allowed on the plane, should not it mean that she wasn't a terrorist after all? But her confiscated things weren't returned to her, she was escorted to her seat by two airline representatives, and of course no apologies were issued.
So my daughter went on her dream trip without a camera, after being traumatized from being treated like a criminal!
What's more she had a mild (thankfully) asthma attack triggered by stress but couldn't get access to her pump for more than an hour because it was taken away from her along with her carry on for search.
El Al airlines's actions were unjustified, brutal, and despicable, what's even more painful that it happened on American soil to an American citizen.

Lesson my 18-year-old learned- lie to stay out of trouble!

The El Al airline ignored my email.
Posted via Mobile Device

[A320FAN]

Originally Posted by jkardon

Out of 400+ passengers my daughter, white Jewish girl, was subject to luggage and body search on flight from NYC to Israel while
being on the trip with a group of young Jews just because she honestly admitted having friends from the Middle East during check in! It's not like she has ties with ISIS! Going to college in NYC a person is bound to know people from all over the world. Teenagers (and some adults) call anyone they know on social media "friends", all five thousand of them! Considering the fact that there are 20.7% of Arabs in Israel (according to Wikipedia) do Jews ever cross path with Arabs ? If "yes" - are they on the black list? If they are not - it's double standards! To add insult to the injury my daughter's camera and phone external battery were confiscated because they are electronic devices! What was the justification for that? They didn't give any explanation except that they needed more time to determine they were safe (which they promised to mail to her house but never did - we had to go to airport to pick them up). But she was allowed to keep her phone (thankfully) which is electronic device too. How does the airline know that other passengers's devices don't pose any threat? Obviously the airline doesn't have the proper technology since they couldn't screen our camera and verify that there is nothing inside it, and that scares. The rest of the people on the plane with some being searched as well were allowed to keep all their gadgets just because they weren't as naive as my daughter and kept their mouth shut. I doubt that the rest of 400 passengers didn't know anyone from the Middle East considering the fact that some go to the same college. Does the airline honesty think that terrorists would volunteer the information about their intentions and connections? Or it catches the innocent honest people because it's easier but make it look like they do their job?! Their security check is a big joke if their trained "physiologists" suspected my daughter. It's meant to scare the people who has nothing to hide, trained terrorists would know how to handle the interrogation. And even if they suspected that my daughter could be just a messenger after being thoroughly searched and obviously nothing found and she was allowed on the plane, should not it mean that she wasn't a terrorist after all? But her confiscated things weren't returned to her, she was escorted to her seat by two airline representatives, and of course no apologies were issued.
So my daughter went on her dream trip without a camera, after being traumatized from being treated like a criminal!
What's more she had a mild (thankfully) asthma attack triggered by stress but couldn't get access to her pump for more than an hour because it was taken away from her along with her carry on for search.
El Al airlines's actions were unjustified, brutal, and despicable, what's even more painful that it happened on American soil to an American citizen.

Lesson my 18-year-old learned- lie to stay out of trouble!

The El Al airline ignored my email.
Posted via Mobile Device

Welcome to EL AL check in procedures. Had she said no to knowing people of Middle Eastern origins, none of what you described would have happened. EL AL security if one of the best, and this is how they prevent people who wish to harm them (EL AL crew and staff) from boarding.