Foreign Minister Abba S. Eban sent a letter today to Secretary-General U Thant protesting the Arab terrorist attack on an El Al airliner in Zurich on Tuesday and challenging him to spell out concretely what “constructive international action” he has in mind in prevent “acts of violence against civil aviation in the future.”
In the note, delivered to Mr. Thant by Israel’s UN Ambassador, Yosef Tekoah, Mr. Eban cited Mr. Thant’s own words of condemnation of the sub-machinegun attack on the Boeing 720B in Kloten International Airport.
Mr. Eban asked that the letter, which he termed “an appeal to the moral conscience of mankind,” be transmitted to all UN member states. A spokesman for the delegation explained, “in view of Israel’s experience with the Security Council, it does not see the Council as the appropriate address to which this letter should be submitted.”
In citing Mr. Thant’s own hope for “constructive international action,” Mr. Eban noted that since Israeli civil aviation has been the principal target of “this governmentally-sponsored piracy, we should like to be informed of all steps taken or planned.”
Mr. Eban recalled the Security Council’s Dec. 31 resolution condemning Israel’s raid on Beirut Airport–a reprisal action for a Dec. 26 terrorist attack on an El Al airliner in Athens Airport–and noted that that measure failed to cite both the Athens incident and the hijacking of another El Al airliner last summer.
All three anti-Israel actions were carried out by the same Arab terrorist organization, the Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The unbalanced resolution, he indicated, fostered an “atmosphere of international indulgence” which led to the Zurich incident, when the Amsterdam-to-Tel Aviv plane, with 17 passengers and 10 crew members, was shot up.
He reiterated the official Israeli position that the responsibility for the assault lies not only with the assailants themselves, but also in “the support and cooperation of Arab governments” without which guerrilla groups could not “exist or operate.”
The Zurich incident, he declared, “raises the deepest and most sensitive issues of international law and morality.” He stressed that the attacks against El Al were the first ever made upon civilian aviation and were designed to “slaughter innocent civilian travelers.”
“The principles embodied in international air conventions were cynically trampled upon,” Mr. Eban said, “and the dignity and sovereignty of a peace-loving neutral nation were mocked.”
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