Dawson's Field Hijackings - Days in The Desert

Days in The Desert

On September 7, 1970, the hijackers held a press conference for 60 members of the media who had made their way to what was being called "Revolution Airport." About 125 hostages were transferred to Amman, while the American, Israeli, Swiss, and West German citizens were held on the planes. Jewish passengers were also held. Passenger Rivke Berkowitz of New York, interviewed in 2006, recalled "the hijackers went around asking people their religion, and I said I was Jewish." Another Jewish hostage, 16-year-old Barbara Mensch, was told she was "a political prisoner."

As groups of the remaining passengers and crew were assembled on the sand in front of the media, members of the PFLP, among them Bassam Abu Sharif, made statements to the press. Sharif claimed that the goal of the hijackings was "to gain the release of all of our political prisoners jailed in Israel in exchange for the hostages."

In the United States, President Richard Nixon met with his advisors on September 8 and ordered United States Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to bomb the PFLP positions in Jordan. Laird refused on the pretext that the weather was unfavorable, and the idea was dropped. The 82nd Airborne Division was put on alert, the Sixth Fleet was put to sea, and military aircraft were sent to Turkey in preparation for a possible military strike. In contrast, British Prime Minister Edward Heath decided to negotiate with the hijackers, ultimately agreeing to release Khaled and others in exchange for hostages. This was bitterly opposed by the United States:

"Tensions between London and Washington are reflected in a bitterly acrimonious telephone conversation between top Foreign Office official Sir Denis Greenhill and senior White House aide Joseph Sisco... 'I think your government would want to weigh very, very carefully the kind of outcry that would occur in this country against your taking this kind of action.' Greenhill replied: 'Well, they do, Joe, but there is also an outcry in this country,' expressing concern that 'Israel won't lift a bloody finger and... our people get killed. You could imagine how bad that would look, and if it all comes out that we could have got our people out but for the obduracy of you and other people so to speak... I mean people say, why the bloody hell didn't you try?'"

On September 9, the United Nations Security Council demanded the release of the passengers, in resolution 286. The following day, fighting between the PFLP and Jordanian forces erupted in Amman at the Intercontinental Hotel, where the 125 women and children were being kept by the PFLP, and the Kingdom appeared to be on the brink of full-scale civil war. The destruction of the aircraft on September 12 highlighted the impotence of the Jordanian government in Palestinian-controlled areas, and the Palestinians declared the city of Irbid to be "liberated territory," in a direct challenge to Hussein's rule.

On September 13, the BBC World Service broadcast a government announcement in Arabic saying that the UK would release Khaled in exchange for the hostages.

According to United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "At this point, whether because readiness measures had given a psychological lift or because he was reaching the point of desperation, Hussein resolved on an all-out confrontation with the fedayeen."

Complicating the international crisis was the fact that Syria and Iraq, which had links with the USSR, had already threatened to intervene on behalf of Palestinian groups in any confrontation with the Kingdom of Jordan. In an astounding turn of events, according to British documents declassified under the "thirty year rule," an anxious King Hussein asked the US and UK to pass a request to Israel to bomb Syrian troops if they entered Jordan in support of the Palestinians. When a Syrian tank crossed the border, Israeli aircraft overflew the area in warning.