Why does this matter?

1. In the US the airlines are mostly private and the government decides not to make the airlines themselves enforce security, but rather creates a centralized group with power over all airports to enforce the problem. Israel’s model is decentralized and thus they have a way easier job to do. In other words its more scalable. But scale is only a small part of the issue. Add to this the tendency in our system to outsource jobs to the lowest bidder and its easy to see why we practice reactive security: Its either that or have practically no security at all.

Unless our airlines were made to share the security burden in a meaningful way, that is. If all of our airlines were forced by the government to do what El-Al does, far more security ‘work’ would get done, we would be more secure, the airlines would raise holy hell about profits falling, and undoubtedly some of the smaller airlines would close down, not being able to compete.

2. Israel has one secure airport and one secure airline. We have hundreds. Saying “Why can’t we be more like El-Al” is like saying “The Entire nation of South Korea has 100% broadband penetration, but the US sucks because its only 44%. Why can’t we be more like South Korea?”. Well South Korea isn’t even close to our size and distribution.

Make no mistake. #2 above is only a tiny part of the reason. I think its mostly a decentralization issue coupled with an inherent flaw in the free market model.