Don't stop baby

[cyrano]

Good news--today Sharon announced that he wanted to put an end to terrorism.
Coming from the leader of the nation that invented airplane hijacking, it's promising talk at least.

Comments

[janne.livejournal.com]

This would be the same man who just denounced all of Norway as a 'nation of Quislings' because a UN-representative of norwegian origin expressed his horror at seeing palestinians digging with their bare hands for their dead in the ruins of what used to be the refugee-camp in Jenin. Sharon sure knows how to make friends around the globe...

[mallen.livejournal.com]

D00d, you almost made me spew diet coke out my nose.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

"...the nation that invented airplane hijacking..."

Interesting. I'd never heard this one before, so I took it to the web. The website "Electronic Intifada" tells me that "The first airplane hijacking was committed by Israel. On 12 December 1954 a civilian Syrian airliner was hijacked by Israel shortly after take-off." Huh, well.

On the flip side, the Israel National News quotes Ahmad Al-Baghdadi as saying, "The Palestinian Arabs were the first to invent airplane hijacking and the scaring of passengers. Isn´t this terrorism?!" Well, yes, it is, unless the Israelis invented it...

Of course, Fidel Castro claimed in a 1972 interview: "Take the problem of airplane hijacking. Who invented airplane hijacking? The United States. Where did it launch its use? In Cuba."

Who's right? Probably none of them. The Encyclopedia Britannica tells me, "Airplane hijacking is also known as skyjacking. The first reported case of such hijacking occurred in Peru in 1931. The first aerial hijacking in Asia occurred in 1948 on a flight bound from Macau to Hong Kong; all 25 people aboard were killed when the airplane crashed into the Pacific Ocean."

The website Infoplease offers more details: "The first recorded skyjacking of an airplane took place on Feb. 21, 1931 at
the city of Arequipa, Peru when a group of rebel soldiers in Peru forced two American pilots to fly them about and drop propaganda leaflets over Lima. The pilots refused and the rebels ended their seizure on March 2, without any damages to the plane."

So

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Grrr. LJ won't let me edit my comment, looks like, which means I can't put the period back at the end, and it looks like I'm trailing off. Imagine a period after "So."

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank you very much for the research.
Everybody, this is my friend Hen3ry. He rules.

harumpf

[miss-friday.livejournal.com]

Yeah, whatever. Do you remember who started this intifada 18+ months ago? I do. It's just another battle in a very long war. Alistair Cooke gives a brief, non-politicized over view. In 500 years it will be a shining example of the folly of the 20th century.