newsIsrael at War

Israeli pilot whose plane was hijacked in 1968 talks Hamas hostage crisis

"We should be prepared to give up a lot, but if we agree to end the war and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar returns to rule over the Gaza Strip, then the State of Israel will be lost."

Flight engineer Yona Lichtman is reunited with his daughter at Lod Airport in Israel, after his El Al aircraft was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Sept. 4, 1968. Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Flight engineer Yona Lichtman is reunited with his daughter at Lod Airport in Israel, after his El Al aircraft was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Sept. 4, 1968. Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

“I can’t say a bad word about the families of the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, since whenever they speak, they speak from the heart,” said Avner Slapak, himself a former captive, as he reclines in his chair.

“I remember how my father said to me, when I returned from captivity, that he had tried everything in his power to get me back.

“We were 12 men who were taken captive and only one of us spoke about the possibility of a prisoner exchange. All the others, including me, agreed that the bastards who had abducted us did not deserve the prize of having even a single murderer released in return for us.

“All the time we said, ‘the government of Israel will ensure that we are released,'” he recalled.

Slapak, now 82 years old, was one of those abducted in 1968 from an El Al plane that was forced to land in Algiers, the capital of Algeria. He was held, together with an additional 11 Israelis, for 39 days, until the Israeli government decided to release 24 terrorists “with no blood on their hands” in exchange for their return, thus bringing to an end to the first airplane hijacking resulting from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the summer of 1968, Slapak, a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot who saw action in the 1967 Six-Day War, was a trainee El Al pilot. On July 22, he joined the crew of flight LY426 from London to Israel via Rome. The captain was Oded Abarbanel, and the first officer was Maj. (res.) Maoz Poraz, who had served in Slapak’s IAF squadron.

Besides the armed terrorist who burst into the cockpit, there were two more members of George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine among the passengers, Slapak said.

Once the plane landed in Algeria, the Palestinian terrorists took a back seat and handed the reins over to the Algerian security police. The women and children on board, along with the foreign nationals, were released, and the hijackers kept the remaining 12 Israelis—seven crew members and five passengers—hostage as bargaining chips for the release of terrorists held in Israel.

“If I knew that our current captives in Gaza were in the hands of captors like the Algerians, then today I would be at ease,” said Slapak. “They were nothing like the Hamas Nazis,” he added.

“It didn’t take me long to realize that they were in a situation way over their heads. They had not planned for us—they didn’t want us—and above all, they were angry at the Palestinians.”

Sarah, Slapak’s wife, sits next to us in the lounge during the interview. The couple were already married when Avner was taken hostage, and Sarah was in an advanced stage of pregnancy in Israel.

“It’s nothing like the situation today, as at that time there was no media or communications and we knew nothing about the fate of the hostages,” she recalled.

The person who made the greatest impression on Slapak during the ordeal was Yonah Lichtman, the flight engineer, who was a Holocaust survivor, he recalled.

“From time to time, when one of us would be overcome by a sense of acute anxiety, Yonah would calm us down and say, ‘Guys, what the Nazis did to me the Arabs cannot do. Don’t worry, I’m here.'”

Their captivity ended after 39 days, without prior warning.

Following the hijacking, and subsequent terrorist attacks targeting El Al aircraft, Israel began to implement meticulous security measures for its commercial flights.

The 1968 hijacking predated the establishment of the civil aviation security unit, which was run by the Israel Security Agency, and contributed to the formulation of an established set of rules for conducting negotiations with terrorists along with preparations for hostage rescue operations.

All those who were with Slapak in the cockpit on the day of the hijacking are no longer with us, or as Slapak puts it, “They’re flying in another world.” Oded Abarbanel, the flight captain, died two years ago at the age of 96, while Maoz Poraz was killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War when his plane crashed over the Sinai. His son, Capt. Nir Poraz, an officer in the Israel Defense Forces’ elite General Staff Reconnaissance unit, was killed in October 1994 during a botched attempt to rescue Sgt. Nachshon Wachsman, a young soldier kidnapped by Hamas.

Slapak returned to flying for El Al until his retirement.

His experience left a mark on him, one he said took time to heal.

“Today, people tend to speak about post-trauma, but at that time, there was no such thing, just as smoking cigarettes and exposure to the sun were not considered to be dangerous then,” said Slapak.

“But every time I saw a prison movie—it would make me jumpy. Or, for example, I went with my wife to the movies only a few days after my release and there were barbed wire fences in the movie, I found it difficult to look at them,” he added.

“It is for this reason that I say that it will take years, if ever, for the hostages who will hopefully return from Gaza, until they can laugh at such things. I can only imagine that they are suffering terribly.”

Slapak has no doubts as to what should be done regarding the current hostage situation. As far as he is concerned, he relies on the prime minister to guide us back to safety and stability.

“I have heard one of the bereaved fathers say: ‘Those who are prepared to give up everything, are they prepared to exchange their children with the hostages?'” he said.

“We should be prepared to give up a lot, but if we agree to end the war and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar returns to rule over the Gaza Strip, then the State of Israel will be lost. There will not be a single Jew, either in Israel or around the world, who will be safe from abduction.”

Capitulation will mean “arming these callous murderers with the ultimate doomsday weapon, more than an atomic bomb,” he said, adding, “I have nothing against the families of the hostages who are constantly out there screaming and shouting. That’s okay, I’m really sorry for them.”

Asked about accusations leveled against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his critics in Israel that his main goal is political survival, not securing the return of the hostages, Slapak is dismissive.

“Oh, do me a favor. His real political survival lies in bringing back the hostages. If he were to bring them all back, he would secure reelection for another 20 years as prime minister. He is much cleverer than anybody else in politics right now,” he said.

“I do have a score to settle with him [Netanyahu], but we will settle everything after we [win] … then there will be elections,” he said. “I believe that new leaders will come forward after the war, just as they did after the Yom Kippur War.”

Those who will lead the country going forward are “our heroic soldiers fighting in Gaza,” he added.

Originally published by Israel Hayom.

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