Steve Clemons has a useful post about GOP demands for Israeli-style airport security in place of the TSA’s strip-’n'-grope regime. Not only would it be more expensive than TARP, and quite probably impractical, but as Stephen Walt writes to Clemons, there’s a bigger question going unaddressed here:
Am I the only person who sees the irony in the recommendation that the US adopt the Israeli approach to airline security? The proper question to ask is: why do we suddenly need greater airport security?
Could it be because we’ve gradually adopted Israel’s approach to the Middle East too?
It’s not only TSA policy that needs to change.
Philip Giraldi 
Adam Rurik 
Publius 
Dacron Mather 
RightOn 
Marcia 
Lynne 
Yes, the Israel policy has got to change.
We are attacked on 9/11 because of our Israel policy, and within weeks of US troops arriving in the area the Israelis are demanding financial compensation for their destabilizing presence. Now that we’re infected with Israel’s terrorism problem, the Israelis offer to sell us security expertise, using an ideally positioned sales force that includes Kristol, Rabinowitz, Marcus, Chertoff, all of whom stand to gain either monetarily or in the ineffable wages paid to those serving their primary allegiance.
Israeli “expertise” in this area is a myth. They are good at provoking terrorism and at profiting from the counterterrorism industry. They’re good at spying on allies, stealing technology, and even better at getting Uncle Sugar to foot the bill for – among other things – the 1 in 5 healthy Israeli men who see fit not to work for a living.
As “security consultants”, their basic competence can be judged by the shambles they made of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania depts of “Homeland Security”, by failure to prevent terrorism and political assassination in Israel itself, and by their matchless ability to mire their friends in their problems.
If we really want the Levantine state of the art regarding regional security specialties – and I think we don’t, actually – we can consult the past masters, our most loyal, stable, valuable and strategically important ally in the area, that aircraft carrier of the eastern Med: Turkey.