Moral Aspects of Lydda Tragedy Stressed in Survey U.S. Christian Leaders Favor More Pilgrimages to I

Christian leaders, editorializing in the wake of the May 30 Lydda Airport massacre, favored continued Christian travel to Israel, tighter security measures against hijacking and terrorism, an end to airline service to countries harboring hijackers, and insistence that Lebanon and other countries cease protecting terrorists. Statements and editorials by Christian leaders stressed the moral aspects of the Tel Aviv tragedy above the political aspects, according to Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, Interreligious Affairs director of the American Jewish Committee, which conducted a survey of non-Jewish reaction.

In what Rabbi Tanenbaum, in his introduction, calls the “clearest statement of the inescapable moral Issue.” the Long Island (N.Y.) Catholic editorialized: “Too many people discuss an international event like Lydda from a purely pragmatic point of view–almost as if such an act could be justified if it got the results desired. This is wrong. No matter what the results, the killing of innocent people has no justification.”

Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, president of the World Council of Churches, commented that “no political reasons or purposes will conceivably explain, much less justify, the Tel Aviv airport crime wantonly committed against clearly innocent people.” Dr. David Hunter, deputy secretary general of the National Council of Churches, spoke at a memorial service for victims of the guerrillas “who planned the massacre and have gleefully acknowledged responsibility”:

“Whatever their plight, however real or unreal their claims to being victims of injustice, acknowledging their homelessness as they reject both Jordan and Israel–nothing under heaven, even a thousandfold greater than their claims, could possibly justify gunning down even one innocent person, much less the scores of helpless people who had landed with hope and were crushed with wilful catastrophe.”

The Rev. John B. Sheerin, a Roman Catholic priest, asserted: “We must deplore this savagery and inhumanity, letting our sympathy for the dead take the form of demands upon the government of Lebanon and other governments involved to act drastically and immediately to prevent any similar atrocities in the future. The madness that sprayed the airport at Tel Aviv with machine gun bullets will, if unchecked, bring down one government after another in bloody revolution.”

Msgr. John M. Oesterreicher, director of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University, declared: “A so-called liberation movement that no longer possesses the courage to fight its battle, but needs hirelings to shoot innocent victims, has lost the last shred of dignity. It has ceased to be a political movement and turned into sheer gangsterism.”

Fr. Charles Angell, editor of The Lamp, called the massacre “a calculated act designed to thwart those who work for reconciliation.” He declared he would continue with plans to lead a 10-day study tour of Israel by Christian pilgrims in Nov. under the sponsorship of the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute of the Society of the Atonement, the Catholic Franciscan Order.