Arafat Said to Have Urged Al Fatah to ‘open Fire’ on Jewish Immigrants

A report that Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat has ordered his men to “open fire” on Jews immigrating to Israel has aroused anger here and renewed calls for direct flights of Jews from the Soviet Union.

Ma’ariv on Sunday cited a report in the Lebanese weekly Al-Muharar that quoted instructions Arafat reportedly gave at a meeting in Baghdad with senior officers of Al Fatah, the largest and most moderate of the PLO’s military factions. He threatened to jail anyone who failed to obey.

According to Al-Muharar, Arafat declared, “I want to say clearly: Open fire on the new Jewish immigrants.”

“I want you to shoot, on the ground or in the air, at every immigrant who thinks our land is a playground and that immigration to it is a holiday or a picnic,” the PLO leader was reported to have said.

“Today I give you my instructions to use violence against the immigrants. I will jail whoever refuses to do this,” Arafat threatened according to the report.

His alleged declaration of war on Jews immigrating to Israel made no distinction as to where they come from. By far the largest number of immigrants arriving in recent months have come from the Soviet Union, most of them flying by way of Bucharest or Budapest.

In New York, the Greater New York Coalition for Soviet Jewry responded to the news of Arafat’s threat by renewing its call for direct flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv.

Its chairman, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, said direct flights “represent the most effective way to deal with Arafat’s latest threat to resume terrorist activities.”

Direct flights seemed imminent last fall, when Israel’s national airline, El Al, and the Soviet airline Aeroflot signed an agreement for joint service.

But the Soviet authorities still have failed to ratify it, in face of Arab complaints that Soviet Jews will be settled in the West Bank to displace the Palestinian population.