It's just a hijacker

Watched the end of an American Experience documentary on PBS, Hijacked, about the hijacking of three--and then four--planes by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on September 6, 1970. It was an astonishingly different time; reading through the documentary's online components you wonder how we all could have been so--innocent? Naive? Young?

Today the commanders who planned and carried out the attack resist comparison to the terrorists who masterminded the events of September 11, 2001: members of the P.F.L.P. were not religious extremists, but secular Marxist Leninists. And of the almost 600 passengers taken hostage, none were killed. And yet more than three decades later, it is clear that a connection exists between the two seminal events, that September 6, 1970 gave birth to a new era of terrorism. ...

The Jordanian "airport" [Dawson's Field] to which the planes were directed was just a strip of hard ground; there was no guarantee the planes would be able to land safely. In the words of P.F.L.P. member Abu Samir, "We were afraid. Could you imagine how the passengers felt?" ...

The hijackers viewed themselves as fighters in a just war, with these skyjackings their only way to get the world's attention. The militants by and large treated the hostages well, making sure they had food and water. They allowed select groups of passengers to speak with the media and permitted one man to get vital medicine for his daughter from the airplane luggage.

And yet at the same time, the P.F.L.P. was telling the world that these hostages would suffer the consequences if imprisoned Palestinian militants were not freed. Sharif acknowledged this duality at a press conference, admitting that hijacking was an inherently violent act, but he stressed that his people did not want to hurt any of the passengers, only use them to obtain the release of captured comrades.

And in the end, the P.F.L.P. threats turned out to be only that; although the hijackers could have killed the hostages, every one of them was eventually released. Khaled would pointedly note that on her flight, only the hijacker died. But even though in general these particular militants were not willing to kill hostages for their cause, a precedent had been set, with goals sought not through negotiation but armed hijacks. In the years to come, future militants would have considerably fewer qualms about ending innocent life.

I guess the terrorists succeeded, in the sense that everyone now knows about the Palestinian problem. But as an Arab commentator on the show says he told them the hijackers at the time, you had a sympathetic cause--by doing this you're destroying it.

The response by the hijackers was, in effect, so what? We had a sympathetic cause, which made those few Westerners who knew and cared feel bad for us--but we weren't making any progress, our people are dying and we're losing more of our land every day. We needed to do something to shock the world and get onto everyone's radar screen.

Everyone's radar screen included that of nascent terrorists. As recalled on a site called Peace Online, in an interesting first-person account by P.F.L.P. spokesman Bassam Abu-Sharif:

Three days later, quite unexpectedly, yet another airliner arrived at Dawson's Field. It was a British Overseas Airways Corporation VC-10. It had been hijacked from Bahrain. Haddad was very surprised: this, too, was a completely unexpected development. He had not ordered the hijack. Who had done it? The control towers at Beirut and Amman airports were in constant touch with us at Dawson's Field. All sorts of officials and ministers were attempting to negotiate on behalf of the passengers. The Beirut controller radioed to Amman that there was a hijacked BOAC flight on its way, and could it have permission to join the merry throng at Dawson's Field? I was with Haddad when the news came in.

'But this was not planned,' he exclaimed, suddenly alarmed. 'We must get ready. This plane might well have a very special passenger-list -like Israeli commandos, for instance.' Beirut tower told us the hijacker was alone, and insisted he was a bona fide Palestinian who wanted to help our cause.

'OK,' replied Haddad. 'Let him give me a sign.' The hijacker's voice crackled faintly over the airwaves: 'Wara kusa'. I started laughing. Wara kusa is a traditional Arab dish of vine-Ieaves stuffed with courgettes in a special sauce; it happened to be one of Haddad's favourites. 'Yes,' said Haddad, a broad grin splitting his features. 'This man is definitely one of us. Let him come.' It turned out that a Palestinian worker in Bahrain heard on the news that Leila Khaled had been imprisoned in London. Leila was a heroine to this man, as she was to all Palestinians, so he decided to do a bit of freelance hijacking to show support. Single-handedly, he would force the British to release the queen of freedom-fighters. The Palestinian worked in a metal-working shop. In his spare time he fashioned an imitation pistol, took it to the airport, and calmly hijacked the first British airliner he laid eyes on.

Sheesh, in his spare time.... This feeling of everyone being amateurs is reinforced by Haddad's description of the passengers.

When they got to the bottom of the chutes, many passengers set off running wildly into the desert. They had no idea where they were going, or how they would survive if they ever got there. Quite soon after they had begun running, the heat would hit them, they would realise they were at greater risk wandering around without food, water or shelter in the middle of a vast stretch of sand than they were with us, and they would come back, looking sweaty and sheepish.

I asked one American who had done this where he thought he was. 'Somewhere in Africa?' he asked dazedly. 'No,' I told him 'You are in Jordan, and we are Palestinian guerrillas.' 'In Pakistan?' he asked, completely bewildered. 'No,' I said patiently. 'We are Palestinian. From Palestine. You know, the country that is now occupied by Israel.' But he didn't know. He had obviously never heard of Palestine. We will just have to go on hijacking until every American in the world has heard of it, I thought.

Instead of setting off at top speed into the desert, some hijacked passengers tried bribery. One woman, also American, emerged from the aircraft clutching her handbag fiercely to her chest. As soon as she reached the bottom of the chute, she rushed up to the nearest PFLP guerrilla, opened her bag, took out a big roll of dollar bills and shoved them into the surprised man's hands. I strolled over to her. 'Lady,' I asked, 'what the hell do you think you're doing?' She looked at me, uncertain what I meant. Then she understood my question for what it was: extreme disapproval. 'Oh, nothing, nothing,' she said. 'I was just giving him a tip.' 'A tip! A tip for what?' I asked her incredulously. 'For hijacking you here? Put it back in your purse, lady. We are not thieves. This is not a robbery.' Crestfallen, she tucked the dollars back into her purse.

Freedom fighter, hijacker, terrorist, guerilla--all these terms have action at their root; no matter what they are, these men aren't passive.

They're acting upon others--aside from the terror they felt, I wonder if the confused passengers weren't also a bit indignant. How dare these swarthy men use us for their own ends. They're not white, who do they think they are imposing their ideas on us by force. And they won't take our money?!

It's a worthwhile reminder that terrorism isn't the birthright of Arabs. There once was a time when you were a metal worker one day, principled guerilla the next. And someone could utter the words 'it's only a hijack' without irony.

As the desert grew very cold at night, we put the passengers back on the planes to sleep. They were already beginning to adapt to their situation. A strange sort of community spirit was springing up. They were forming friendships, talking animatedly in little groups, sometimes singing quietly together. I went on board to tuck them in and help keep them calm. 'Don't worry, it's only a hijack. Nobody will be hurt,' I said in my best bedside manner, while my PFLP colleagues went around wiring detonators to large lumps of plastic explosive placed under their seats. ...

Examining the passports, I found that three of the Israeli citizens were cabin staff, two were rabbis and two were passengers with dual US-Israeli nationality. Next day we released all the women, children and old people; but we kept a small group of passengers with high political value: all the diplomats - and all the Israelis who'd ditched their passports.

One of the rabbis who had tried to flush away his passport signalled that he wanted to talk to me. He was actually from New York. He was certainly scared, as anyone would be, but he asked me to give him some books to pass the time. I sat down next to him, and we began a discussion. Naturally, he was very much against the idea of taking innocent third parties to advance our cause. We ended our talk without reaching any common ground. The next day we picked up the discussion where we had left off. I enjoyed matching wits with him, and found myself looking forward to our daily exchange of views.

In the end, having listened to the case I put for the people of Palestine, the rabbi said that, in my place, he would do the same. Whether he said that under the strain of the position he was in I cannot tell, but he did say it. Later, when he was interviewed on television. All he would say to the assembled press was, 'These people deserve to live, and they have a just cause.' He refused to say anything further.

Uncredited photo of guerrillas blowing up three planes (TWA, Swissair, BOAC) at Dawson's Field in the Jordan desert, September 12, 1970.

Uncredited photo of hostages on the fourth BOAC plane.