EL AL? EL AL? Surely, Sir, you are pulling our collective legs here? I've had the distinct displeasure of flying EL AL to and from TLV once. That one time will also be the last.
By far some of the worst service I have ever experienced onboard a full service carrier, delivered by very rude stewardesses and pontificated by a cabin full of screaming children with parents not seemingly giving a toss. Add to that conversations so loud the engines could barely be heard and, as the final insult, a crappy Boeing 737 to get us to and from.
As for the security, yes, it's fine in TLV. Especially when you've got a security pre-clearance and is being escorted by the operations manager of a handling agent. Took a grand total of 21 minutes from entry into departures until safely past the last (4th?) security check.
On the outbound trip, however, I was grilled by some over-ambitious Mossad drop-out for more than an hour. Eventually lost my cool and told him could stuff himself, his airline and his country - I had had it. Was saved last second by some manager type, who just happend to know the very senior IAI bod I was meeting with.
Best airline? Doesn't exist I'm afraid. LH has been good, and awful. Same with BA. All US carriers are consisitenly crap, so that's easy. KL have been very good, and less good. GF was fantastic in F, and borderline crap in C. SK - very nice intercontinenal in C, crap in any class for intra-Europe flights. SQ? Nice, but I fail to see what all the fuss is about - they're not that different from most other quality carriers. EK was ok, and nothing more. And so on and so forth. I'm quitely confident QF would score equally poor and bad, depending on the day.
I've never flown QF, and until such time as continenal drift moves that desolate continent closer to my home shores, or the airline industry abolishes it's no-smoking policy (whichever comes first, I'm not bovvered) I'm afraid that Australia shall remain the sole continent on this here planet I shall not visit.