Guest Post: Fears Of Flying

By Zeev Shemer

The three fears of flying

The first fear regarding the danger of flying on an airplane is the fear of crashing. Many have been the accidents caused by either a mechanical or a human error. However proportionally speaking, flying is safer than driving.

The second fear is attributed to the invention of Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian born terrorist who took on the cause of the struggle of the Arab world against the "tyrannical" Zionist occupation. His group the PLO brought to the world our second featured fear: Hijacking.

Thanks to Arafat every airport in the world has a metal detector and security screening for passengers traveling across the skies. Every time we pass through a security checkpoint we owe it to Arafat, our Nobel Peace Prize recipient who brought hijacking and terror to the airlines of the world.

Hijacking will probably cease to exist. Not only due to the added airport security but also since 9-11, it is my guess, that passengers will fight to death before allowing hijackers to take control of an airplane, chances are hijackers would try to slam the airliner into a building anyway.

Our list continues and we come to fear number three: Shoulder-held heat-seeking missile launchers. The first time the world became concerned with this threat, was after a Russian TU-154 airplane, on route from Tel Aviv to the Russian Siberian city of Novosibirsk, exploded in mid-air and plunged into the Black Sea coast in 2001, killing all 76 people on board. A few days later came the admission:

* October 12th, 2001 People's Daily Online: “Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk admitted on Friday that the Russian TU-154 passenger plane that crashed into the Black Sea on October 4th could have been mistakenly shot down by a Ukrainian S-200 missile, killing all 64 passengers - mostly Israelis - as well as 12 crew members.”

* On November 28th, 2002 two shoulder-launched SA-7 missiles were fired at an Israeli passenger jet departing from Mombassa, Kenya carrying 260 passengers and crew on board. Both missiles missed the airplane, and Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack. A simultaneous hotel bombing took place and 13 Israeli tourists and 3 local workers were killed.

* On April 2003 it was reported that Al-Qaeda terrorists planned to fire a Strella-2 anti-aircraft missile at an El Al airliner landing in London's Heathrow International Airport.

* On August 13, 2003 Jimmy Moore of Talon News reported: “An international plan to smuggle into the United States a shoulder-fired missile designed to shoot down a commercial airplane was interrupted by the FBI. Three people were arrested, including a British man in Newark. He attempted to sell a Russian SA-18 Igla missile to an FBI agent involved in a covert operation.”

* On September 24th, 2003 Israel National News: “Another Missile-to-Plane Attempt Thwarted - Police in Thailand recently nipped in the bud an Al-Qaeda missile attack against El Al passengers in the Bangkok airport. The plan was discovered when a man was found to be filming in the airport, and his arrest led to the finding of preliminary plans to fire missiles on an El Al plane during take-off.”

* On November 20th, 2006 Israel National News: “German Police Foil Terror Plot to Attack El Al Plane - Six suspects are under investigation by German authorities for plotting to blow up an El Al passenger flight out of the Frankfurt airport. The attack was foiled when an airport employee backed out.”

We have been told that El Al is installing an anti-missile system on all its planes. The Israeli-made system is called Flight Guard, and its manufacturer, Elta Systems, expects to sell its system to two other Israeli airlines as well: Arkia and IsraAir.

International intelligence sources estimate that 30 terrorist organizations are currently in possession of rockets, some 150,000 of which - mostly Soviet-made - are available for $5,000 each. We can only conclude that more airplanes have not been shot down as a result of miracles, but how many more miracles are we to expect in the near future?

Many such attempts are kept under the media’s radar. Sometimes we catch only a glimpse of a story, this is an example: Israel National News: “On October 23rd, 2003 El Al flight 105 Toronto - Los Angeles, was diverted from Toronto to Montreal by the control tower due to a security alert.” No further details were ever released. Rockets in fact have already felled 27 passenger planes, that is, at least 27 planes we know of.

To summarize, it is only a matter of time before Muslims take an airliner out. Hundreds of dead men, women, and children will provide the images that will hunt civilized man for decades to come. The world economy once again will take a hit and then it will look for an escape-goat. Israeli (lack-of) leadership will be forced to make further concessions to Muslim terrorists (referred to as ‘Arab militants’ and ‘innocent civilians’ or ‘victims of occupation’) who in return will then think of how to take terrorism to the next level.

How can we prevent this tragedy waiting-to-happen from occurring? A common football coaching technique comes to mind: “A good defense is a good offense”. For starters, El Al planes landing and taking-off over Arab-dense population zones is borderline insane. For argument sake, if Israel transferred the Arabs out of the State, not only would internal security ease-up but also terrorists would lose their raison d’etre. When the US made it clear that California was not part of Mexico anymore, or when England sent its fleet to the Argentinean coast to establish militarily that the Falkland Islands are British property, foreign claims slowly disappeared. If Israel can strongly establish its borders, Palestinian claims will eventually evaporate as well, but as long as Arabs are allowed a foothold in our land, (disloyal Arab-Israeli citizens, an Arab presence in Judea and Samaria) expect terrorism to continue. The struggle for a Palestinian state will not die-out until Israel either ceases to exist or does away with their dreams.

In the mean time, we’ll continue to travel with a few fears.

With Love of Israel,
Zeev Shemer
Ramat HaGolan, ISRAEL

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