Israel said today that the Arab governments were directly responsible for Tuesday’s terrorist attack on El Al passengers at Munich Airport in which one Israeli was killed and 23 other persons injured. In a letter to Secretary General U Thant, Israel’s Ambassador Yosef Tekoah declared that the Arab governments were “actively participating in the organization, financing and training of terror organizations and in the direction of their operations.” The Arab governments, he charged, “are abusing the decencies of diplomatic relations by trying to extend to individual perpetrators of murderous terror acts–even when they have been caught red-handed and placed on trial–their diplomatic protection.”
Mr. Tekoah said “The responsibility of the Arab governments goes even further, for it is they which have encouraged the spread of a psychosis favorable to such sneak and cowardly attacks and have been glamorizing them.” Mr. Tekoah’s letter referred to expressions of “deep concern” by the Security Council and the General Assembly over acts of unlawful interference with civilian aviation such as the attack in Munich and previous fatal attacks on El Al airliners at Athens and Zurich. He said that a copy of his letter was sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization and requested that it be circulated as a document of the Security Council and the General Assembly.
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