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As hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London's Heathrow Airport in 1986 comes to mind. It consisted of an El Al security agent quizzing one Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to "get rid of the thing," he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in "the Holy Land." He also insisted on their...

Stress Security, Not ConvenienceThe safest airline in the world, it is widely agreed, is El Al, Israel’s national carrier. The safest airport is Ben Gurion International, in Tel Aviv. No El Al plane has been attacked by terrorists in more than three decades, and no flight leaving Ben Gurion has ever been hijacked. What are the Israelis doing that we aren’t? Airports in the United States and many other countries are built around convenience while in Israel it’s all about security. We get our boarding passes online and check our baggage at the curb. At T.S.A. checkpoints, youths stare at...

An El-Al passenger jet bound for New York nearly collided with an Air France airliner over the skies of Belgrade on Monday, Channel 2 revealed on Tuesday evening. According to the report, the Serbian air controller made a mistake and instructed the Air France airplane to fly on a route already used by the El Al plane, so that the jets were on a collision course. The two planes were about to crash in midair, but emergency alarms alerted both pilots and the El-Al plane changed course at the last minute, when the distance between the aircraft was only 300...

VS. WHO: Yeffet Isaac, Former Director of El-Al Airlines Security -VS.- Ibrahim Hooper Executive Director of C.A.I.R.WHAT: A Well Overdue DEBATEWHEN: As Soon As PossibleWHERE: LIVE NATIONWIDE on American TV, CNN, FOX, Major Networks, Radio Stations, NPR, etc., With Studio Audience Able to Ask QuestionsWHY: America dodged a major bullet on Christmas Day in Detroit. Reports are that additional terrorist acts involving US airliners are probably on the way. El-Al has a clean record of never being attacked by Islamist Extremists. C.A.I.R. has stated that the US should not, at all costs, racially and religiously profile passengers in the...

SANTA ANA – A man was sentenced to 70 months in prison today for his role in a domestic terrorism plot to wage war on the United States by attacking Jewish synagogues and military bases. Hammad Riaz Samana is the fourth member of Jami'yyat Ul-Islam Is-Shaheeh, or JIS, a prison-founded group that wanted to make a political statement that also had plans to attack the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and El Al Israel Airlines at the Los Angeles International Airport. Samana was 21 when he was charged in the case in July 2005, along with the cell's mastermind, Kevin...

(IsraelNN.com) Travelers on Israeli airline El-Al report that its flights now feature a satire about residents of Hevron which many have termed “anti-Semitic.” The producers of the film may face libel suits. The offending skit was aired earlier in the month on the satirical Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Land) show on Channel 2 TV. The popular show has run for six seasons in Israel and is similar to the American program Saturday Night Live. (The Hevron film clip can be viewed here in Hebrew.)

Plans by an unknown group to attack staff of Israel's national carrier El Al in Canada have been thwarted, Israel's private Channel Two television reported on Wednesday. Without giving the nationalities of the alleged attackers, it said they had monitored the comings and goings of El Al aircrew at a Toronto hotel. Security procedures for crews overnighting at the hotel between flights have now been changed, it added. On Tuesday, Israeli newspapers reported that at least five attempts by Hizbullah to abduct Israeli businessmen in Africa, Asia, and South America had been foiled. Each time, Hizbullah -- which fought a...

Israel's national airline, El Al, and American Airlines said Tuesday they will begin selling tickets on each other's connecting flights beginning in September. The agreement replaces a code-share deal that El Al had with Delta Air Lines Inc. until late last year, when Delta began its own direct flights from the United States to Tel Aviv. The agreement with American will begin Sept. 2. American will sell tickets on El Al flights from the US to Tel Aviv as if they were American jets. El Al will sell seats, or place its "code" on tickets, on some American domestic flights...

The security measures on aircraft belonging to Israeli airlines and around them during takeoffs and arrivals abroad have been significantly boosted over the past few days for fear that Hizbullah would act on its promise to avenge the February assassination of its top commander Imad Mugniyah. The number of armed security guards on some of the flights to several destinations has been increased, as was the number of guards surrounding the plane after the landing and before the takeoff. "The threat is extremely concrete, and there is no choice but to do everything possible," a source involved in aviation security...

(IsraelNN.com) El Al Airlines said it is negotiating with Boeing on the purchase of four new 777-220 jets, with delivery beginning in 2012. The airline said no final agreement is expected after several weeks and is subject to approval of the executive board, Reuters News Agency reported. All of El Al's planes are made by Boeing, and it would have the option to convert its purchase to 777-300 jets by the end of this year. El Al recently bought two 777 planes for its routes to the United States and Asia and said additional planes are needed to meet a...

A source close to the Italian airport police said local authorities only learned of the graffitti after the plane left the Italian airport for Tel Aviv on Monday. Pro-Palestinian graffiti written in Arabic has been found scrawled inside the cargo hold of an El Al plane during unloading at Milan's Malpensa airport, raising Israeli concerns about Italian airport security. "It was something like 'Long Live Palestine',"... "It has happened once before." Israel's flag carrier, which normally uses round-the-clock security for its planes...

Civil liberties group calls on Arab sector to protest humiliating security screenings at Ben Gurion airport, shun national airline Roee Nahmias Published: 09.18.07, 17:54 / Israel News Israeli Arabs should boycott El Al, a new pressure group said in its first press conference Tuesday in Nazareth. The group, a subcommittee for Arab civil liberties in Israel, has been formed under the auspices of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee. The boycott call comes in protest of the screening process Israeli Arabs citizens are subjected to at Ben-Gurion airport. Aside from the airport issue, the new group said it wanted to fight...

Israel evacuated passengers from airplanes at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on Thursday, after securities found package suspected to be bomb, the Al- Arabiya TV reported. Meanwhile, local daily Jerusalem Post also reported the evacuation at the airport, saying it was made after a suspicious object was found Thursday evening during the security check at Ben Gurion Airport. It said the security personnel detected the object when they were checking electrical device being loaded onto an El-Al plane bound for Moscow. The object was being sufficiently analyzed, said the report.

An El Al jet taxiing before takeoff at Ben Gurion International Airport filled with smoke on Sunday, forcing passengers and crew to flee the aircraft on emergency slides, airport officials said. The 128 passengers and crew members on the Zurich-bound 737 were evacuated after smoke began billowing out of vents on the plane, airport spokesman Yiftach Kramer said. No one was hurt in the mishap, the cause of which was still unknown, he said. "The plane started taxiing before takeoff, and while it was taxiing the plane filled with smoke and there was a burnt smell," passenger Shlomi Safran told...

BERN, Switzerland -- For centuries, this Alpine nation has successfully relied on a strict policy of political neutrality to insulate it from the wars, invasions and revolutions that have raged outside its borders. These days, a new threat has emerged: one from within. As they have elsewhere in Europe, Islamic radicals are making inroads in Switzerland. Last month, Swiss officials announced the arrests of a dozen suspects who allegedly conspired to shoot down an Israeli airliner flying from Geneva to Tel Aviv. In a related case, a North African man has been charged with organizing a plot from Swiss soil...

El-Al passengers held up after arriving from Milan. The reason: Swastikas were sprayed inside cargo hold of aircraft. El-Al: We filed official complaint to Italy Eli Senyor Published: 11.06.06, 22:24 Several swastikas were discovered Monday night in the cargo hold of an El-Al aircraft which was on its way from Milan to Tel-Aviv. The swastikas were discovered when the cargo doors were opened in Ben Gurion Airport, and all passengers were held for questioning. The incident, which caught the passengers by surprise, was discovered only after the aircraft had landed in Israel after a scheduled flight from Milan's international airport....

A month and a half after being arrested in Mumbai for carrying bullets in her rucksack, Noa Haviv is expected to gain back her freedom Monday after an Indian judge instructed authorities to return her passport. She is expected to return to Israel in the coming days. Haviv, a 28-year-old from Jerusalem, was arrested upon arrival to India on an El Al plane from Israel. A cartridge loaded with 16 9mm bullets was found in her bag, which belonged to her brother. Haviv was released about a week later, but her passport was held by local authorities and she was...

Israel's security is at risk due to the decision by several European nations not to allow El Al cargo planes carrying arms shipments to land - and therefore refuel - on their way to Israel. According to El Al pilots' spokesman Itai Regev, the decision by England, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy - whose national carrier Alitalia recently won a bid to be the preferred carrier for Israeli public servants flying abroad on official business - not to allow arms-laden El Al flights to refuel necessitates the transport of significantly smaller quantities of weapons and ammunition per flight. At a...

Confiscating hair gel and Starbucks coffee is this year’s equivalent of the banning of nail clippers and lighters. Put another way, the enhanced security measures put into place at airports across the world following this month’s disruption of a plot by British Muslims to smuggle liquid explosives onto several transatlantic flights aren’t making airline passengers feel much safer. Which is why Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has tried to reassure American travelers about boarding an airplane by reminding them of such protections as the “prohibition on liquids, gels and beverages in carry-on baggage.” The problem is that while possible liquid...

Doing more thinking about the new, more onerous restrictions on what you can carry on board flights today, I’m reminded that El Al, as far as I’ve been able to tell, has never had an in-air attack on one of its aircraft via a weapon smuggled on board. How do they do it? After all, they are target Number One of every Islamic terrorist in the world. And they don’t do it by making every passenger submit to multiple indignities and force them to fly bereft of their possessions. The difference is that while the Transportation Security Administration screens out...