A spokesman for the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that the organization has not called for a boycott of Israel over last week’s downing of a Libyan airliner. The spokesman said press reports here and abroad to that effect were totally misleading. Circles close to BALPA told the JTA, however, that a token 24-hour boycott of Israel as a protest over the Sinai tragedy could not be ruled out.
BALPA circles could not predict what may emerge from today’s meeting here of the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations (IFALPA) to which most nations engaged in commercial aviation belong, including Israel and the Arab states. While denying that BALPA has tabled a motion to boycott Israel, the spokesman said that the IFALPA meeting in Mexico City in Dec. 1972 agreed to apply more pressure in order to end crimes against civilian aircraft such as hijacking.
“A five point program was adopted at the time and one of the points was that a boycott should be proclaimed against a country involved in acts endangering aircraft or passengers or causing death or injury to passengers or crews. The Israeli representatives were very keen that this program should be adopted,” the BALPA spokesman recalled. “Now BALPA will merely remind the meeting of the program adopted in Mexico and leave it to the meeting to decide what to do,” he said.
BALPA circles told the JTA, “We can see clearly the difference between the Sinai incident and a hijacking crime. We are more concerned with hijacking than such incidents as the Sinai disaster, caused by a series of errors and not planned in any way. However, a token boycott against Israel, say 24 hours, more as a protest than as a warning, as you cannot warn against errors, would do Israel no harm but would serve as a powerful warning to any future hijacker and his protectors,” the circles said. “This is how we see it, and we hope the Israelis will see it the same way,” they said.
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