ZGram - 8/12/2002 - "Israeli deputy foreign minister a 'security risk'?"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

august 12, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

[START]

Citing security, pilot refuses to fly with Israeli
The Associated Press

Monday, August 12, 2002
 
CINCINNATI A pilot for a Delta Air Lines subsidiary would not fly the 
Israeli deputy foreign minister, Michael Melchior, from Cincinnati to 
Toronto because the pilot thought Melchior posed a security risk, an 
Israeli radio station reported Sunday.

Melchior, who was being escorted by State Department officials, told 
Israel Radio that he waited on the plane Friday for more than an hour 
before the pilot evacuated it, saying there was a security risk.

When Melchior disembarked, he said he was told that he would not be 
allowed to get back on the plane. "The security officials and the 
company all put pressure on him, and there were negotiations," 
Melchior told the station. "But the pilot is sovereign on his 
aircraft, and he is empowered to make such a decision, and he did it 
in spite of all the pressure from the company and security officials."

Melchior said he boarded another Delta plane about a half-hour later. 
He has since returned to Israel.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington had taken up the matter with the 
State Department, Melchior said.

This is the third time in recent months that an Israeli official has 
been removed from a flight because of a pilot's sense of a security 
risk, Israel Radio reported. The others reportedly were Alon Pinkas, 
the Israeli consul general in New York, and a bodyguard of the 
Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres. Melchior said the singling 
out of Israeli diplomats and "removing them from a plane in such a 
manner, and the very fact that we are Israelis" is deemed a security 
risk, is "intolerable."

So far there has been no response from Delta, to a message left at 
the airline's corporate offices early Sunday seeking comment on the 
incident.

[END]

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( Source: 
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=67385 
)

Zundelsite comment:

I love these brief, sharp stories where the action of one courageous 
citizen is bound to cause whole organizations and corporations 
getting raked over the coals.  Watch vilification and shrieks 
unleashed on Delta Airlines!

That's how the dissident movement gains ever new and often highly 
influential converts whose egos won't let them forget!