Rabbi Miller Urges Nixon, Aviation Leaders Act Now ‘to Curb Rash of Air Terror’

Rabbi Israel Miller, President of the American Zionist Federation, called upon President Nixon and international aviation leaders today to take “immediate and stringent steps to curb the rash of air terror which is now plaguing the Western world and especially Israel,” in an address to the B’nai Zion Convention here attended by 400 delegates.

In his appeal to President Nixon, Rabbi Miller demanded the implementation of a two-part plan which would “cut off all United States assistance to countries from which air terror originates or which offer asylum to skyjackers,” and which would “deny landing rights in this country to national carriers belonging to nations which harbor terrorists.”

In separate cables to Capt. J.J. O’Donnel, president of the 46,000-member AFL-CIO affiliated Airline Pilots Association (A.P.A.) and Capt. Ola Forsberg, president of the London-based International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations (I.F.A.L.P.A.). Rabbi Miller urged the adoption of a three-point proposal at the forthcoming meeting of IFALPA: first, that IFALPA pilots boycott all flights which do not undergo a thorough and uniform security check prior to each take-off; second, that they refuse to fly to or from any country from which acts of air terror originate or which offer asylum to air terrorists; and third, that any member airline that does not comply with the first two regulations or whose country aids terrorism of any kind be expelled from the international body.

Recalling the emergency meeting of IFALPA more than two years ago, Rabbi Miller said: “That meeting resulted in little but talk with absolutely no concrete steps taken. Last week’s massacre at Lydda and the alarming growth in air crimes which have been plaguing the skies these last months are the result of the indifference shown by the pilots at that time.”