Aj Congress Says Airlines Must Boycott Terrorist Sanctuaries Claims Pilots’ Strike ‘off Target’

The American Jewish Congress said today that the world’s airlines must apply sanctions against countries that shelter aerial terrorists and claimed that today’s world-wide pilots’ strike aimed at getting governments to take action was “off target.” In a statement issued here, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, president of the AJ Congress, said the “only effective” means to stop air hijacking was a selective civil aviation boycott “aimed squarely and only at those countries that give encouragement or sanctuary to air terrorists.” According to Rabbi Hertzberg, “The civil aviation community has to face up to the fact that it must help itself and that it cannot wait for governments to respond.”

He said that “Sanctions in the form of a boycott by pilots and airlines should indeed be imposed. But the point of the boycott is lost if it is indiscriminate and world-wide.” He said the pilots were “misdirected when they seek to induce the UN and other governments to act on air terrorism and misconceived when they institute a world-wide boycott.” Rabbi Hertzberg observed that the protection of the lives of air travellers “cannot wait while proposals for various forms of action drift through diplomatic channels.”