Thant's Condemnation of Hijackers...and His Previous Role
UNITED NATIONS (JTA)—Secretary General U Thant Ti'esday assailed the "criminal acts of hijacking planes"
and termed the acts of the hijackers "savage and inhuman." In what was considered here as Thant's strongest condemnation
of hijacking to date, the secretary general declared: "It is high time that the international community, through appropriate
agencies and organizations, adopt prompt and effective measures to put a stop to this return to the law of the jungle."
In his statement to newsmen, Thant said: "These criminal acts of hijacking planes, of detaining passengers and crew,
of blowing up aircraft and of the detention of passengers in transit from commercial airliners, are most deplorable and
must be condemned. However understandable and even justifiable some of the grievances of the perpetrators may be, their
acts are savage and inhuman."
A UN spokesman also stated that Thant is "in continuous touch" with the Israeli mission to the UN regarding
the two Algerian officials who were taken from the BOAC plane at Lydda Airport three weeks ago by Israeli authorities and
detained for questioning. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesmen said last week that Thant's intervention to get the Algerians
released was "pointless and useless." They noted that he never considered such action when Algeria detained a hijacked
Israeli airliner and its Israeli male passengers and crew for 39 days in 1968 or when Syria held two Israeli passengers
in jail for more than three months after a hijacked TWA airliner was forced down in Damascus more than a year ago.
THE JEWISH NEWS
World Guilt:
Failure to Act
in Blackmail
Hijacking
Attributed to
Great Powers, UN
Michigan Weekly
Commentary
Page 2
VOL. LVI I, No. 26
Review of Jewish News
Chance to Save
Honor of UN
Time for Proper
Programing
Editorials
Page 4
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
Southfield, Mich. 48075, 356-8400 September 11, 1970 $8.00 Per Year; This Issue 25c
iCel.27 17515 W. 9 Mile Rd., Suite 865,
al
Threats From Desert:
Blackmail, Terrorism
World Public Opinion Flaunted as 300 Hostages
Are Held for Ransom; Jews Given Nazi-Fashion
Treatment; International Red Cross Negotiates
Defying world public opinion, contemptuous of the appeal that was
issued by the United Nations Security Council late Wednesday for the
immediate release of the 300 hostages who are being held for ransom.
th Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in its threats from its
desert airstrip where the hijacked planes are held with many of the
passengers, renewed the demand for the release of all their compatriots
who are held in jails in England, West Germany and Switzerland and
also in Israel.
While the other nations appeared ready to yield to the blackmail
threats, Israel has made it known that there will be no dealings with
criminal terrorists. Israel's leaders have warned that there is no limit
to submission to blackmail, and there are demands from many quarters
for firm action to prevent recurrence of hijacking.
With the International Red Cross now empowered to negotiate with
the terrorists for the release of the innocent people held as hostages, the
terrorists, who originally set 10 p.m. Wednesday as the deadline for
adherence to their demands, have extended it for 72 hours until Saturday
night. Now there are fears of their intention to resort to further hijacking
in order to extend their power, and the world community has become
seriously concerned with the developing menace to the security of travelers
on overseas airlines.
Pilots' associations at first rejected any proposal for the placement
of armed guards on planes—a policy established by El Al Israel Airlines
which saved the El Al plane from capture last Sunday morning—but there
is insistance on such procedure and legislative regulations are being framed
to assure such action. Meanwhile, the pilots' associations have declared
themselves in favor of boycotting all lands whence stem hijackers or where
hijackers find asylum. There is a demand that the hijackers who blew up
the Pan American plane in the Cairo Airport should be held on criminal
charges, and it has been urged that the death penalty be imposed on hijack-
ers. Cairo Airport was closed on Wednesday.
Congressman Gerald Ford is urging adoption of stringent measures
to deal with the hijackers. There is growing endorsement of this demand
made editorially in the New York Times: `It is long past time for the
airlines and the governments of the world to declare a boycott of the
Arab states, to refuse to let Arab planes land elsewhere in the world and
to refuse to fly non-Arab planes to those countries until the hijackers
have been outlawed in the Arab lands."
It is generally conceded that Arab governments have become helpless
in the matter, that Hussein's fate hangs in the balance in spite of his
army's battles with the terrorists, and the assistance the guerrillas receive
from Red China is viewed as a major threat.
It has been confirmed that Nazi tactics have been introduced in the
treatment of the hostages, that Jewish passengers aboard the hijacked
TWA plane were segregated from other passengers by their captors at the
desert airstrip in northern Jordan. The list of TWA passengers contained
the names of more than 80 Jewish passengers who boarded the plane in
Tel Aviv. None of those names appeared on an appended list of passengers
who were permitted to spend the night at hotels in Amman.
Reports reaching New York said about 60 Jewish women and children
were forced to remain on the plane after 30 other women and children
were bussed to Al :than. The passengers were reported to have been lined
(Continued on Page 48)
ZOA Affirms Solidarity With Israel
By Jewish News Special Correspondent
HERMAN L. WEISMAN
Newly-Elected President
of the ZOA
NEW YORK—Stirred by the tragic Mid East events that took place on the final day of the sessions, delegates to the 73rd annual conven-
tion of the Zionist Organization of America, meeting at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel since the previous Thursday morning, moved to spur a national
campaign for solidarity with Israel and unstinted support for the fighters for freedom and security for the Jewish state.
There was unanimity in the demands for an end to the violations of the cease fire agreement charged against the Soviet Union and
Egypt for the installation of surface to air missiles close to the Israel line of demarcation at the Suez Canal. To offset the disadvantages thus
created for Israel there were renewed demands for immediate shipment to Israel of Phantom jets thal have been ordered in the United States.
National leaders—Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Arthur Goldberg, Congressman Ogden Reid, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, and others
—joined with the retiring president of the ZOA, Jacques Torczyner, and his successor, Herman Weisman, who described the urgency of the hour
and called upon the Nixon administration for action to assure that Israel's security will not be compromised.
Convention resolutions condemned the betrayals which threatened the negotiations that were to be held under the direction of Gunnar
Jarring. Torczyner sounded the convention keynote when he called upon American Jewry "to state now and firmly that we will fight every
effort to impose an unjust peace upon Israel and that we will stand by Israel because if we abandon Israel we weaken the moral position of
the United States in the world." He warned American Jews not to he "guilty of silence" in the present crisis.
Addressing the convention banquet that was held Sunday night in Torczyner's honor, ltzhak Rabin, Israel's ambassador to the U.S.,
condemned the hijacking of planes as international crimes and as acts of blackmail and warned that there will be reciprocal action by
Israel.
Herman L. Weisman, accepting the presidency of ZOA as successor to Torczyner, called for unstinted American Jewish efforts to assure
the safety and sovereignty of Israel. He condemned the cease-fire violations and the build-up in Egypt of Soviet missile sites and declared:
"Only the strong influence of President Nixon can effect the removal of roadblocks to peace negotiations which have been paralyzed by the
pernicious and flagrant scrapping of the basic terms of the cease fire." (Continued on Page 5)