My father, who is Puerto Rican with very Arab facial features (ancestors came from Southern Spain — the whole Moors vs. Christians thing) had a really hard time with El Al security when he was flying from JFK to Tel Aviv with his wife (my stepmom) to visit her son, who had married an Israeli woman in the mid-1990s and they moved to Tel Aviv to be closer to her family.
Dad was asked what he did for a living. He said “criminal attorney in San Juan”. El Al guy said: “That’s not true”. Dad showed him his business card and other lawyer-related ID. El Al guy said: “These are fake”. They asked him about a million questions, over & over, by himself and with my stepmom, and then they allowed him to board. Questioning lasted about 1 1/2 hours! My stepmom was not asked one single question — only my dad. It was unbelievable! And my Dad loved the experience because he felt safe on that plane ride to Israel.
When my sister went to Israel a few years ago to meet her soon to be husband’s family(They married last year we all went) she actually was interrogated for an HOUR by El Al Security, taken into a room and interrogated..she hadn’t done anything wrong they just randomly chose someone to interrogate even though my Mom is an Israeli citizen and has Dual Citizenship, you can tell by our last name that its Israeli but they still interrogated her, that was when she decided that she would only fly Business Class from now on..Business Class is the EASIEST way to fly El Al, comfy seats, don’t have to go through crazy security screenings, they know her husband who served in the Israeli army so they just let them go by. Ever fly to Israel, fly Business..I wouldn’t do it any other way, its more expensive but sitting in those sardine seats where I had to get up every 20 minutes to pee wasn’t fun LOL I think I spent the majority of those 15 hours coming home in the bathroom