Customs

The basic idea behind this technique is to ask questions repeatdly, most of them dumb and a few of them smart, in order to check whether you contradict yourself or not. Of course a lot depends on who is asking the questions. The people you'll meet at the border are not skilled at all, but if you look extremely suspicious your caqse will be handed over to some very skilled people.

An interesting question is : is this efficient ? Most of my Israeli friends are deeply convinced that when asked many questions repeatedly, anyone lying will unmistakebly contradict himself/herself and be unveiled.

A friend of mine who's a security officer gave me a different opinion. He said it was super easy to train yourself to lie, and that only unexperienced, young people wanting to volunteer in some Palestinian NGO would be found this way. He said people with bad intentions could easily pass the screening by training beforehand to answer questions with a lie.

He said most of the real security work is carried out by the intelligence bodies in Israel, and certainly not by the people you see at the border.

Note this is not customs+ , but +immigration . Customs is interested in whether you are smuggling cigarettes or stolen goods.

If it is any comfort to you, I have lived in Israel for decades, speak Hebrew, am obviously Jewish and look it. When leaving+ Israel I get asked the most idiotic questions as well, like where I learnt Hebrew (yeah, 30 years in the country and gosh, I actually speak the language...) It's not only the +young people wanting to volunteer in some Palestinian NGO who get put through the mill, although obviously they are given a harder time than someone like me.

"young people wanting to volunteer in some Palestinian NGO." that's an interesting opinion.

Thanks for the interesting responses, and apologies for any imprecision over language. The security screening on entrance to the country doesn't disturb me at all, nonetheless thanks for the reassurances. I was more interested in the absurd questioning and anecdotal reminisces as to some of the odd tangents taken.

Well, to be honest the questions asked upon entering Israel are in my experience a bit of a laugh: as long as you don't make the cardinal mistake of admitting you're there for any Palestinian-related purpose and the story you do tell adds up (conclusion: the safest thing is to say you're a tourist and nothing more, this will usually suffice), you should get in.

The trouble spot is, rather inexplicably, upon LEAVING Israel, when the security at Ben Gurion Airport will habitually subject you to a barrage of questions. Even if trained, you won't get away with any lies here. On the other hand, the questions mainly seem to serve the purpose of determining how bad your security check is going to be. If they decide it's bad, it's BAD: imagine going over every page of every book you have to check for explosives and unloading every single item from your bags (not to mention your person). As yet, I don't have any personal experience of what happens upon returning to Israel after being saddled with the really bad security check: friends tell me they don't actually take down names, but somehow I don't really believe this.

I agree with Thomas. In my experience, leaving is much more difficult than entering. If you go as a tourist, on leaving you explain for each day where you stayed and which bus you took, then show receipts to back it up. When I went there for work a while ago, on leaving, a security officer insisted on starting the interview process WHILE I was at an exchange counter changing money to pay my taxi waiting outside with my luggage still in the trunk. Of course I insisted that I would be with them in a minute AFTER getting my luggage. Not a good start? They then kept analyzing my laptop behind the scenes for ages, 10 minutes before flight departure time they were still at it, with myself having resigned to the fact that I would not leave on this flight. And then at the very last moment a guy gave me back the PC, took my arm and rushed me past all immigration and boarding checks. Made it JIT, plane door slamming behind me.

#1

A friend of mine who's a security officer gave me a different opinion. He said it was super easy to train yourself to lie, and that only unexperienced, young people wanting to volunteer in some Palestinian NGO would be found this way. He said people with bad intentions could easily pass the screening by training beforehand to answer questions with a lie.

A childish and inmature way to confront things. The paradoxical thing is that you do not understand that because there are people with bad intentions who try to easily pass the screening by training beforehand to answer questions with a lie, the Israeli staff need to be so suspicious and interrogate innocent traveller so much. So if that is your suggestion to other travellers ( admitting some of them to be knowingly malicious ), please do not complain about the Israeli staff being so interrogative to travellers. That is the very cause of it. And if you have any questions about the Israeli staff behaviour, please read your own lines to have an answer.
What a fool !

Re Thomas: as weird as it may seem, having had to go through the worst security check upon leaving Israel does not mean it will happen again when you go back there: they do not keep track of your security check. I know many people whose "security check" was level 6 one time (6 = search of your luggage item by item and full body search in a locked room), and only level 3 (very mild search) or 2 (no search) the following time. A lot depends on the security officer you speak to. Some of them seem to think a Moroccan stamp on your passport is very worrying, while others don't care.

I have a friend who's an aid worker and goes on missions to Gaza from time to time. Once the security officer watched him weirdly, asked what he had done in Gaza and gave him maximum security level 6. The following time, another security officer told him : "You go to Gaza? That' must be super interesting to be a humanitarian worker in Gaza" and gave him a very mild security level. There's no logic at all. Foreign journalists based in Jerusalem are used to betting drinks on what security level they will be each time they're due to take a plane at Ben Gurion.

I was in Israel last week. Getting in was easy - was asked purpose of trip, how long I would be in the country, where I was going to go, and whether I knew anyone in Israel. I was somewhat Clintonesque and said that I was "focussing" on certain parts of the country and, ahem, didn't include the West Bank in that list. Sailed through.

Getting out was a totally different story. Once I said I had been in the West Bank and they found some Arabic stuff in my bag, I was put on an enhanced screening track. (Not sure where this is on the scale of 2 to 6 - sounds like near the 6 end of the scale.) One security officer in particular was belligerent, accusatory and asked stupid questions - and kept cutting me off before I had finished my sentence answering a question. The security officer I spent most of the time with was very professional and fine to deal with. They did about a 95% thorough search of my bags (thank god did not find my second passport with Arab and Iranian visas), swabbed just about everything for traces of explosives, x-rayed my carry-on after they had emptied it, x-rayed all my electronics, and took me off into a separate room for a pat-down. From getting to the airport to getting through the security check was about an hour. At least once they're done with you, they take you straight through to the front of the check-in line so that you don't have to go through the regular security check with the lucky masses who avoided the enhanced check.

My advice on getting through the exit process (consistent with what I had read on Thorn Tree before I left) is to answer their questions honestly and remain polite and calm, no matter how stupid or rude their questioning may be. I kept reminding myself that, if they put someone like me - who is clearly not a security risk - through a check like this, then I could have a high level of confidence that anyone who was truly dodgy would get a thorough check before getting on the plane. So just think of the greater good if you end up dealing with a bit of nonsense!