Dual Narratives of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict in Court: Shaping the Perception of International Terrorism

In the summer of 1968, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) initiated a sustained campaign of attacks against Israeli targets in Europe. The first occurred in July of 1968 when the PFLP hijacked an El Al plane en route from Rome and redirected it to Algiers, an event widely recognized as a seminal act of international terrorism, marking the first instance of a plane being hijacked for the purpose of coercing political concessions from an adversary. ¹

This hijacking began what David Rapoport has termed the ‘New Left Wing’ wave of terrorism. It was an international wave led by Palestinian organizations that paved the way for and joined forces with other leftist groups, such as the Red Army Faction (RAF, also known as The Baader-Meinhof Group) in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy. The New Left Wing engaged in hostage-taking, arson, embassy bombings, and assassinations of political and judicial figures. The scale of their activities was significant; in Italy alone, there were approximately 14,000 incidents in the first decade of their launch. ²

Among the most notorious events of this era was the attack on the Israeli delegation attending the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Despite failing to achieve their objective of freeing Palestinian prisoners, the members of Black September, an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), considered the operation a success as it garnered global attention for their cause. These frequent attacks by the New Left Wing created a pervasive sense of crisis, and the term ‘terrorist’ became commonplace, featuring prominently in debates at the United Nations and elsewhere . ³

The U.S. government was deeply concerned about the development of political hijackings as well as hijackings between the United States and Cuba, which sprang not from political extortion but from social protest and the personal choices of hijackers. In the late 1960s, no specific convention explicitly addressed the case of plane hijackings, though the United States had pressured different countries to ratify the 1963 Tokyo Convention, as parts of it could apply in cases of hijackings. Article 11 of the Tokyo Convention determined that a signatory state ‘in which the aircraft lands shall permit its passengers and crew to continue their journey as soon as practicable, and shall return the aircraft and its cargo to the persons lawfully entitled to possession’, meaning that in case of a hijacking the country where the plane landed was obliged to free the passengers and allow them to continue on with their travel. Nevertheless, Article 11 did not deal directly with hijackers and their culpability and made no demand about how to treat them. To deal with this issue, the United States sought to promote the creation of a new treaty focused on hijacking. ⁴

Following the first ground attack on an El Al plane in Athens, U.S. State Department official Frank Loy wrote in December of 1968 to Knut Hammarskjöld, Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), stating:

The Government of the United States shares your great concern at these developments. We believe that efforts to deal with serious political differences and disputes by interfering with and endangering safe and regular air transport not only threatens human life but also is destructive of a transport system of enormous importance to the world.

From the point of view of the Americans, plane hijackings and ground attacks had come to symbolize an unacceptable way to pursue political ambitions. It risked innocent passengers and the interruption of the air travel system, in which they were deeply invested. ⁵

In the late 1960s, in the subcommittee of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) legal committee, the United States advanced two multilateral conventions that would frame the attacks on air transportation squarely as criminal acts executed by lone perpetrators and not as strategic maneuvers backed by militant organizations seeking self-determination. Defendants who were accused based on laws drawn from these conventions would be viewed as individuals and not as members of a political group with national aspirations. Framing these actors as criminal would deny them the status of combatants, a status that could have potentially protected them from criminal prosecution, nor could they claim the status of prisoners of war (POW), which would have granted them specific rights unavailable to criminal prisoners. ⁶

While there was a consensus at the ICAO to avoid nonstate intervention in air travel, committee members differed on how to achieve this goal. Some opposed the American initiatives, specifically a requirement that a state would be obliged to extradite a hijacker. The line between those supporting this requirement and those opposing it ran roughly along the division of countries belonging to the Global South and Global North. States in the Global South, a few of which had only recently gained independence, viewed some of those who hijacked and executed ground attacks as liberators and freedom fighters, while the colonizers and occupiers were those who used terrorism to rule. For example, Algeria, which had only recently gained independence from France, viewed the hijackings by Palestinians as a legitimate attack on what it viewed as Israeli colonizers’ terrorist means of ruling. In their view these acts were a justified means of realizing self-determination. ⁷

The negotiations taking place at these conventions unfolded against the backdrop of two trials, each centering on a ground attack targeting an El Al plane, one departing from Athens and one from Zurich. ⁸ These trials, which are the focus of this article, were probably the first legal proceedings related to what would come to be known as ‘international terrorism’ and the key focus is how the different sides portrayed the attackers, either as terrorists or combatants, and with what justifications. Underlying the arguments of the opposing sides, which I will analyze, lay similar issues to the ones discussed at the conventions, such as the question of how to view defendants in a hijacking case, whether as combatants who partook in a militant attack under the jurisdiction of International Humanitarian Law or as individuals whose acts should be prosecuted under criminal law. ⁹

During these two trials against members of the PFLP and against an Israeli security guard, each side presented its view of the attack as a militant or, alternatively, criminal act. These narratives, communicated both within the courtroom and beyond to a global audience, advanced divergent views of the broader narrative of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with far reaching consequences. Each would come to frame the perception of future attacks as either a legitimate means of resistance in the struggle for national independence or as illegitimate acts of terrorism. In essence these trials focused on whether or not to define the acts of the participants as terrorism.

Existing research on the security framing of aviation attacks has considered the topic within the context of the 1970 Hague and 1971 Montreal Conventions. No study has addressed how divisions between the nations of the Global South and North once manifested themselves within legal proceedings concerning plane hijackings and their public echo. As I will attempt to demonstrate, these trials raised key issues that may have informed the work of the formulators of the two conventions, especially the Montreal ‘Convention for the suppression of unlawful acts against safety of civil aviation’, which introduced specific articles related to ground attacks. ¹⁰

One reason groups such as the PFLP targeted air transportation was to garner public recognition for the Palestinian cause through global media attention. Yet, as I point out, the attacks achieved only so much. It was the trials that followed and the media surrounding them that elevated the accused and those who backed them to an entirely new platform to present their case and to enable the Israelis, as well as others, to secure another win in their effort to deter international terrorism.

The first ground attack on an airplane took place at Athens International Airport on 26 December 1968. Two PFLP members disembarked from a flight originating in Beirut, accessed the airport apron, and shot at an El Al plane that was preparing for departure. They also set one of the aircraft's engines ablaze. The attack killed one passenger and seriously injured a flight attendant when she leaped from the plane onto the apron to escape. Greek authorities apprehended the two Palestinian assailants. ¹¹

The second attack occurred on 18 February 1969, as El Al Flight 432 taxied toward the runway at Kolten Airport in Zurich. As the aircraft neared the runway, a group of four PFLP members breached an airport fence and launched a barrage of gunfire and hand grenades at the plane. Their assault inflicted injuries on six crew members and passengers, including a copilot trainee who succumbed to his wounds a few weeks later. ¹²

In response to the initial gunfire, an Israeli air marshal stationed on the plane – a new and secret security practice only recently implemented on Israeli flights – swiftly rushed toward the cockpit, returning fire with his pistol. Yet, his shots proved ineffective, so the air marshal, Mordecai Rachamim, jumped out of the plane and confronted the assailants directly. At the end of this encounter, one of the attackers, Abdel Mohsen Hassan, lay lifeless in the snow. Swiss authorities subsequently arrested the three remaining assailants and apprehended Rachamim, charging him with the killing of Hassan after he was disarmed. ¹³

In Beirut, the PFLP issued a statement justifying its Athens attack. The Israeli national airline was not, it asserted, ‘an airline undertaking innocent civil transport’. It served, the PFLP argued, to facilitate an ‘aggressive military activity’, which turned the plane into a legitimate military target. In fact, the group continued, the airline conducted ‘secret flights under supervision of the Israeli Defense Ministry, of air force pilots trained in flying Phantom jets’. ¹⁴

El Al also had a military function, involving the transport of equipment to the Israeli army. During a news conference held by the ‘Swiss Committee for Support and Aid to the Palestinian Nation’ (‘Schweizerische Komitee für Unterstützung und Hilfe an das palästinensische Volk’), which advocated on behalf of the three PFLP detainees, the speakers suggested that the plane most likely carried military gear. They drew this inference from the observation that, despite having only twenty-nine passengers on board, the cargo compartments were fully occupied. To substantiate their claim regarding the military role of the plane, the Committee highlighted the presence on the flight of an air marshal and the director general of the Israeli Foreign Office, Gideon Rafael. ¹⁵

The military narrative was also front and center in the account of the attack in Greece. Arab attorneys providing consultation to the defense portrayed the acts by the PFLP as ‘military actions against wartime adversaries’. This framing appeared to expand the justification for targeting Israeli assets overseas by extending the Middle-Eastern military conflict to other regions of the world. By characterizing these actions as military in nature, they argued that authorities should classify the assailants as captured war combatants who fell under the jurisdiction of International Humanitarian Law and thus could not be placed on trial. This also meant that the defendants were not criminals but POWs and should be treated accordingly. ¹⁶

Another rationale for the attack provided by the PFLP centered on the treatment of Palestinians by Israel in the occupied territories. In a statement released in Amman, a PFLP spokesperson portrayed the attack as retaliation for the Israeli forces’ actions against ‘unarmed and innocent civilians in occupied Arab territory’, the implication being that the true terrorists in this conflict were not the Palestinians but Israeli soldiers who harmed innocent civilians. These unjust acts justified the Palestinian militant organizations combating their oppressor and occupier wherever they found them. ¹⁷

In leaflets found at the site of the attacks, the PFLP assailants asked for forgiveness from Greek and Swiss citizens for violating their territory. In the leaflet found in Switzerland, they wrote: ‘The Palestinian Arabs ask the Swiss nation for understanding in the name of the leader of your national resistance, Wilhelm Tell, for today's events’. ¹⁸ Similarly, in Athens, the PFLP asked,

the friendly Greek people that has a glorious history of battling the Nazi occupier that it will understand the exalting motivations that stood behind this action as we conduct an honorable and legitimate struggle against the Zionist occupier of Palestinian land.

The PFLP acknowledged it had transferred a national dispute to neutral territory yet justified these attacks as part of a ‘legitimate struggle’ against colonialist forces that had overtaken Palestinian lands. They also asked the Greek authorities to release the two attackers ‘as a token of respect and appreciation of the legality of the struggle of all persecuted peoples against invasion and foreign occupation’. In a world that had not yet determined how to view political hijackings, the Palestinians’ deployment of a military narrative was a key move. ¹⁹

The Palestinians not only portrayed the attacks as legitimate military responses, but they also depicted the acts as justified political resistance aligned with leftist ideology. They drew parallels between the attackers and figures such as Che Guevara and the Marxist Cuban resistance, aiming to garner public sympathy and leverage the trials as political platforms to raise awareness about their cause. ²⁰

The PFLP Zurich leaflet preempted pushback by raising a pertinent question: If the assault was driven by political motives, why not opt for negotiation and peaceful resolution?

Way (sic.) don’t you ‘negotiate’ with Israel? For the same reason that al (sic.) European nations refused to negotiate with Hitler. Negotiation in the presence of occupation means collaboration.

The leaflet implied an equation between the Zionist enemy and the Nazis. Furthermore, it rejected the UN's 1948 partition plan for Palestine, asserting that it legitimized the existence of a Zionist state, akin to ‘White States’ that discriminate against non-white populations. ²¹

In total, the Palestinians cast the attacks at foreign airports as components of a military operation aimed at advancing their political goals, which involved the elimination of Israel and the establishment of an egalitarian Palestinian state in its place.

From the beginning, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) portrayed the airplane attacks as criminal acts of terrorism targeting innocent civilians, not as military actions. In this framing, there was no acknowledgment of a political motive behind the attacks, and the perpetrators were regarded as criminal offenders, not combatants. The Israelis sought to challenge the political narrative that the Palestinians attempted to promote, depicting the attack as a murderous act. ²²

The Israelis also cast the attacks as a global threat for aviation. In a communique following the Athens attack, the Israeli government portrayed the unprecedented violence as a threat not only to its national airline but to all global airlines:

This criminal attack does not only testify to the murderous character of its executors but also to the quality of the forces who stand behind them and are responsible for the irrational terrorist acts that are a danger not only to the air routes of Israel but of all nations. ²³

The Israelis emphasized the peril that an explosion of gas tanks on the plane would have posed, not only to the international passengers onboard the aircraft but also to passengers on other flights parked nearby. Furthermore, such strikes could create complete anarchy in air travel if other militant opposition organizations adopted them. And indeed, as mentioned, just months later other organizations such as the ELF would launch attacks on Ethiopian planes. The Israelis seemed to suggest that other nations should also adopt the view that these were terrorist attacks committed by criminal individuals in order to help stop their spread. ²⁴

After the Zurich attack, Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abba Eban, reiterated the global threat in his correspondence with the UN Secretary General.

The attack on the aircraft in Athens airport in December was the first occasion since men learned to fly on which an attempt was made to slaughter innocent civilians travelers helplessly exposed in a stationary aircraft on the ground with engines in full rotation and tanks loaded with highly inflammable fuel. The only possible motive which the attackers could have had was to explode the aircraft and burn all passengers and crew alive. ²⁵

Eban portrays the attack as a threat to the entire aviation industry, potentially reshaping the relationship between travelers and aircraft. Instead of being seen as symbols of progress, planes would transform into death traps under the onslaught of such ruthless terror.

The Israeli narrative also suggested a threat to global coexistence. Rafael, Israel's Director General of the MFA who had been on the targeted plane, explained in an interview that airports had evolved beyond being solely national assets; they were now

domains with international implications. The global outrage sparked by the terrorist attack on the El Al plane in Zurich was not solely due to it being an Israeli aircraft, but rather because the terrorists had audaciously targeted a civilian plane at an international airport, and notably in Switzerland.

Switzerland was a nation renowned for its commitment to neutrality, which made the argument that airports had evolved into international arenas vulnerable to attack even more compelling. ²⁶

The Israelis attributed the responsibility for jeopardizing international air travel not only to the PFLP but also to Arab countries, including Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, which hosted or backed such terror organizations. In a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General, Eban articulated that, ‘Without the support and cooperation of Arab governments, these piratical groups could not exist or operate’. He went on to emphasize that, ‘By giving their protection to groups that carry out acts of international piracy and murder against civilian aircraft, these governments are also flouting their obligations as members of ICAO and signatories of air conventions’. From his perspective, the Arab nations bore a significant share of responsibility for violating international air transport through their support, training, and endorsement of these terrorist organizations. ²⁷

The Israelis didn’t limit their criticism to mere words; they backed their stance with action. On December 28, 1968, Israeli forces conducted a raid on Beirut International Airport, resulting in the destruction of fourteen Arab airlines aircraft. The Israelis executed this operation without incurring any casualties on either side. It served as a response to both the July 1968 hijacking of the El Al plane to Algiers and the attack in Athens. ²⁸

In a statement delivered at the Knesset following the Switzerland attack, Minister of Transportation Moshe Carmel pointed directly to Lebanon, demanding that it ‘eliminate these nests of piracy from its territory’. He then issued an implicit warning to all Arab states harboring organizations that threatened the safety of Israeli aviation: ‘Arab states interested in maintaining international air routes […] would be wise to take immediate and robust measures to suppress these saboteurs […], in order to prevent the deterioration and disruption of Middle East air routes’. In these words, Carmel alluded to the potential of Israeli actions retaliating against Arab air travel, either through the destruction of their aircraft or by other means, such as hijacking an Arab plane. ²⁹

These two divergent narratives – one issued from the Palestinians that portrayed the ground attacks as military operations with political objectives, and the other from the Israelis, which characterized the violence as criminal terrorist acts executed by individuals threatening the security of the global traveling community – stood in stark contrast to each other. The subsequent challenge was to present a winning narrative in a court of law.

In the aftermath of the attacks, authorities in both Greece and Switzerland initiated legal proceedings against the assailants, and in the case of the Kolten Airport attack, they also brought charges against the Israeli air marshal, Rachamim. The trial in Kolten occurred in November of 1969, while the trial in Athens, due to ongoing delays, commenced in March of 1970. These postponements resulted from the Greek judiciary's lack of independence and interference from political authorities (described later). Merely placing the attackers on trial seemed to indicate that the state prosecutors viewed the attacks as falling under criminal law; however, as we will see later in the Greek case, the situation was not so clear cut. ³⁰

The trial commenced in Kolten with hundreds of journalists from across the globe descending upon the small Swiss town to cover this unprecedented event. The first-ever legal proceeding related to international terrorism in the context of air transportation, the trial would bring the Middle Eastern conflict into a humble Swiss courtroom and then thrust it back out into the spotlight of global public attention, advancing one of the goals of the PFLP attack. More importantly, the trial would present the first opportunity for a court to rule on the disputing views of the prosecution and defense, judging whether the attack should be defined as a military or terrorist attack, as a political or criminal act. ³¹

The Swiss prosecution presented an indictment that clearly categorized the attack as criminal. It charged the three PFLP members with counts of willful killing (vorsätzlichen Tötung), illegal possession of weapons and explosives, attempted illegal use of explosives, causing material damage, and violating Swiss sovereignty. The Israeli air marshal, Rachamim, faced charges of murder under extenuating circumstances and violating Switzerland's sovereignty. If convicted, the three PFLP members could face more than a decade in prison, while Rachamim could potentially receive a sentence of several years. ³²

The PFLP members – Mohamed Abu el Heiga (23), Amina Dahbour (25), and Yousef Ibrahim Tawifk (33) – all occupied a single bench, alongside Rachamim, with only one police officer separating them. In the months leading up to the trial, Israeli officials tried in vain to persuade Swiss authorities to conduct separate trials for the Palestinian and Israeli defendants, contending that a joint trial would necessitate a higher level of security. More importantly, they argued it was ethically problematic to try the attackers who had committed ‘an insidious attack’ on innocent passengers within the same legal proceedings as a security officer who had merely ‘reacted’ to their assault – a person who had risked his life to protect those passengers. Israeli officials likened it to holding a joint trial for a burglar injured during a break-in and the police officer who had shot him, underscoring the stark differences in the roles and intentions of the accused. ³³

Another argument in favor of separate trials revolved around public perception and impact. In a document presented by Rachamim's legal team to Swiss authorities, the defense attorneys contended that a joint trial would significantly dilute the chilling, educational effect of the legal proceedings. Instead of a trial centered on the criminal attack of a civilian plane departing from a neutral nation, followed by a second trial focused on the matter of self-defense, it would appear as if a singular ‘Kloten affair’ trial was taking place, in which both Arabs and Israelis faced consequences for unlawfully engaging in combat. This last option would better match the Palestinian narrative of an armed clash between two warring factions.

The Israeli stance favored a separate trial that would isolate Arab actions in the public eye, emphasizing the terroristic threat the attack posed to international air travel. A joint trial risked devolving into a political exchange between the two sides, effectively serving the Arab agenda of gaining global attention for the Palestinian cause. Ultimately, the judge dismissed the Israeli request for a separate trial without addressing any of the country's concerns, only citing the need to conserve the court's time and resources. ³⁴

Abu el Heiga, Dahbour, and Tewfik each delivered an opening statement at the start of the hearing, framing their defense within the larger contours of the Arab–Israeli conflict. They began by recounting their challenging lives as Palestinian refugees who had suffered the hardships of the 1948 Nakba and experienced displacement by Israeli forces. They then spoke of their attack in Switzerland. To explain why the group chose Zurich, Tewfik pointed to the historical context: the inaugural Zionist Congress in 1897, which convened in Basel. He argued that this initial Zionist gathering on Swiss soil had paved the way for the ‘horrible’ establishment of the State of Israel, ‘which led to the misery of my people’. These statements clarified that the underlying motive for the attack was political. ³⁵

Subsequent to their opening statements, the three individuals informed the court of their refusal to recognize its authority and declared their intention to remain silent throughout the proceedings. Additionally, they had dismissed their attorney in September and rejected the replacement nominated by Swiss authorities, Walter Huber, who was present in the courtroom. Their decision to reject Swiss justice was rooted in what they perceived as irregularities in the pre-trial investigations, which they believed indicated bias against them. Notably, in March of that year, the court had granted Rachamim bail of 100,000 Swiss francs ($23,200) and permitted his return to Israel, while the Arab individuals remained incarcerated. For them this decision seems to have indicated that the court favored Rachamim. ³⁶

In response, the presiding judge, Dr. Hans Gut, admonished the Palestinians, emphasizing that it was a matter of basic courtesy to respond to questions. The Palestinians’ retort was, ‘Our future now rests in the hands of the Swiss people and international opinion’, believing that the public support outside the court would promote their argument. Judge Gut attempted unsuccessfully to persuade them, urging, ‘You should speak [in court] to ensure your voice is heard worldwide’. Some, including their court nominated attorney, suspected that the group's decision to remain silent was influenced by external directives. The Palestinian defendants’ silence caused the proceedings to focus on exchanges and testimonies related to the actions of the Israeli air marshal. As a result, some media outlets began to refer to the proceedings as ‘the Rachamim trial’ or ‘the El Al trial’. ³⁷

This choice to remain silent was a strategic miscalculation by the Palestinians, effectively ceding the public platform to Rachamim and the attorneys representing him. As a result of the Palestinians’ lack of cooperation, rather than become a political spectacle centered on the Middle Eastern conflict, the trial instead came to focus on the broader issue of terrorism's threat to international air travel. ³⁸

Yet, while the Palestinians maintained their silence within the courtroom, their representatives made efforts to advance their cause in the court of public opinion. Through a series of news conferences and publications before and during the trial, various Arab spokespersons sought to shape the narrative in their favor. In a publication known as the White Book, issued by the Swiss Committee for Support and Assistance to the Palestinian Nation and provided to jurors during the trial, they put forth the claim that the El Al plane was carrying weapons. They also drew conclusions, based on the testimony of a Swiss policemen, that the slain Hassan had been disarmed before Rachamim shot him. Furthermore, the White Book contended that the PFLP assailants had independently decided to abort the attack when they observed passengers were not evacuating the plane after their initial gunfire, indicating that Rachamim's actions did not influence their actions. ³⁹

This attempt to shape public opinion seems to have failed. An editorial published in Switzerland's prominent newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, underscored the paradoxical nature of the situation, wherein the defendants remained silent within the courtroom while their representatives continued to make extensive statements elsewhere. The editorial portrayed these Arab statements as threats at the court and attempts to manipulate it. Just as they had violated human norms in their attack, the PFLP now showed disrespect to a neutral's state coveted judicial institution. ⁴⁰

In the opening session, the judge sternly addressed the efforts by Arab associations outside the courtroom seeking to influence the trial. He instructed the jury members to disregard any prejudiced publications, such as the White Book. Despite the court's warnings, certain organizations persisted in critiquing the trial, even going so far as to claim that while the Palestinians had engaged in an act of war, Rachamim had committed a war crime himself when he killed an unarmed man. ⁴¹

The critical focus of the trial revolved around unraveling the precise nature of the encounter between Rachamim and Hassan on that fateful night. As a handful of witnesses took the stand, each provided a slightly different account of events: some claimed to have seen the two exchange words, while others did not; some recalled Rachamim striking Hassan, while others did not; and one witness remembered Rachamim threatening Hassan with a gun, while others did not. However, despite these contradictions, the witnesses all maintained Hassan was unarmed when Rachamim fired the fatal shot. It appeared that Rachamim's fate was hanging in the balance. ⁴²

The Swiss media mirrored the growing skepticism within the courtroom regarding Rachamim's self-defense claim. One newspaper stated that ‘Rachamim‘s self-defense theory is collapsing’. Another headline read, ‘The self-defense argument is crumbling more and more’. It was widely acknowledged in the media that the prosecution's witnesses had raised substantial doubts about the validity of the self-defense argument. They had set a formidable challenge for the defense to demonstrate in court that Rachamim was motivated by a genuine need for self-preservation or to protect passengers, rather than by a need for revenge. The stakes were high. While convicting Rachamim of manslaughter may not have definitively established the attack as part of a military operation, it would have challenged the prosecution's and Israeli narrative framing the events as a terrorist attack. Such a verdict would support the Arab claim that Rachamim had committed a war crime, ultimately situating the event within the context of a militant conflict. ⁴³

When Rachamim took the stand, he recounted the initial sound of shots striking the aircraft, his attempts to return fire through the cockpit window, the ensuing panic in the cabin, and his decision to leap out of the plane and rush toward the assailants. He unwaveringly maintained his initial statement, a handwritten account submitted to the authorities eight days after the incident, which he had crafted after consultation with his attorney and the Israeli counsel. In his statement he had written,

I ran to the fence [of the airport] got over it and in a moment of pause saw a person with a rifle. I was terrified and shocked and feared he might shoot me. I began to shout in English that he droop his rifle and all the time I advanced and shouted. I did not see anything around, only the person with the rifle. I think my pistol was all the time in my hand. I neared and he still did not drop the rifle. I don’t remember what a distance from him I was when suddenly I saw him twist in my direction and immediately I shot him consecutively until I felt someone taking the pistol from my hand and leading me to the [police] car. Suddenly I saw all that was taking place and I saw people and the person I shot laying on the snow and a pool of blood beside him. ⁴⁴

Ten months after the incident, while on the witness stand in Kolten, Rachamim remained steadfast that Hassan had held a rifle when he shot him. ‘I’m certain he had a rifle’, he testified. He presented the possibility that after his initial shot, Hassan may have dropped the rifle. In response to the judge's query about the testimonies of emergency personal that contradicted his version, Rachamim explained, ‘They did not see him because so many things were happening simultaneously. It was only after I fired that they turned to look at me’. The focus of those present, he surmised, was on the struggle between Abu El Heiga and the head of the airport fire detachment, Hans Haemig, preventing them from seeing Hassan at that moment as a threat. ⁴⁵

Rachamim's defense also presented an important piece of evidence during the trial. They played a recording of an interview with Hans Dürr, a prosecution witness and airport worker, who had testified in court that he saw Hassan unarmed when Rachamim shot him. However, in the interview, given to a local television station shortly after the incident, Dürr clearly stated that Hassan was armed when he witnessed Rachamim shooting him. Furthermore, three of Dürr's co-workers testified that he had told them Rachamim had shot Hassan while he was still armed, and it was only after being shot that the weapon dropped from his hands. Dürr told them he had then picked up the rifle and aimed it at the other assailants. ⁴⁶

Unlike the testimonies against Rachamim, which differed in their claims, those testifying in his favor were consistent in their accounts. In his closing remarks, Rachamim's defense attorney, Dr. Georges Brunschvig, highlighted a significant inconsistency in the prosecution's case. He pointed out that while the prosecution's witnesses testified to seeing both Abu El Heiga and Hassan carrying weapons, only one witness, Haemig, reported that he had ordered Abu El Heiga to disarm. In the case of Hassan, none of the witnesses testified that they had ordered the assailant to disarm. Given the perilous and chaotic situation Rachamim found himself in, Dr. Brunschvig argued, anyone in his position would have acted similarly to Rachamim. ⁴⁷

Brunschvig then provided an explanation for what he perceived as inaccurate testimony from some witnesses, particularly from members of the Swiss police. He pointed out that the media and public opinion had been critical of the airport police's handling of the situation. Questions had arisen about why they had not prevented the attack in the first place, why there was no senior commander on-site, and why there was no established procedure for responding to such incidents. Brunschvig suggested that the police report, authored by officer Bruno Strub, who also testified that he saw Rachamim shoot a disarmed Hassan, may have been an attempt to cover up the mishandling of the event by the police. Similarly, Brunschvig argued, the testimonies of Strub and other police officers might have been influenced by a desire to protect the reputation of the police force. ⁴⁸

On 22 December 1969, the court issued its verdict. The jurors exonerated Rachamim, as the testimonies presented significant contradictions. In contrast, they found Abu El Heiga, Dahbour, and Tewfik guilty of murder in extenuating circumstances and violating Swiss sovereignty. The court's president, Gut, subsequently sentenced each defendant to twelve years of imprisonment. Additionally, he ordered Rachamim's release and the return of his pistol. This first verdict on a ground attack of an airline outside of the conflict zone, the Mideast conflict, placed it squarely within criminal law. It gave no credence to the argument that this attack was part of a military conflict. ⁴⁹

On 27 December 1968, the day after the attack on El Al Flight 253 in Athens, Chief Prosecutor Vassilios Papanastassiou revealed his intention to file multiple charges against the two assailants, Mohamad Mahmud and Suleiman Maher. The charges placed before the investigating magistrate judge, Nikolas Slyleanakis, encompassed allegations of murder, attempted mass murder, arson, endangering human lives, imperiling aircraft safety, and unlawful possession, carrying, and use of weapons and explosives. The prospect of an imminent trial appeared likely. ⁵⁰

However, several months passed without the trial commencing. Observers from both Israel and other Western nations began to speculate that Arab states were exerting pressure behind the scenes on the right-wing Greek Regime of Colonels to postpone. Whatever the reason, the Greek government was, in fact, exerting pressure on the Greek judicial system, which was not fully independent at the time, to delay the trial. At one juncture, the prosecutor even approached the Greek Minister of Justice to assess whether prosecuting the attackers of the El Al plane could adversely affect Greece's diplomatic ties with Arab countries. He clarified that Greek law allowed for such a delay if it served the nation's diplomatic interests. ⁵¹

No matter the exact reasoning, the lack of a trial could be interpreted as accepting the Arab argument that this attack fell under International Humanitarian Law and that the assailants should be considered as combatants who cannot be tried for their actions.

Up until the trial finally began in March of 1970, nearly a year and three months after the attack occurred, the Israeli government exerted pressure on Greece to prosecute the Palestinians. The Israelis cautioned international entities might perceive Greek reluctance to prosecute terrorists as indifference to acts of international terror, precisely when many governments and international travelers were calling for decisive measures to prevent such incidents. ⁵²

The Israeli government actively mobilized international support to ensure the initiation of the trial. They engaged with the American Jewish community, attempted to establish connections within the Greek American community, reached out to travel agencies, and contacted organizations such as the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations (IFALPA) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), urging them to communicate with the Greek government to express their concerns. In a telegram from El Al's director general, Mordecai Ben-Ari, to the head of IATA, Knut Hammarskjöld of Sweden, Ben-Ari highlighted that the trial's delay introduced ‘political elements into the realm of armed interference with civil aviation’. ⁵³

On the inaugural day of the Kolten trial, 27 November 1969, two members of the PFLP launched an attack on the El Al office in Athens. This act appeared to send a political warning to both Swiss and Greek authorities aiming to intimidate the judiciary to reach results favorable for the Palestinians. Tragically, the attack resulted in the death of a two-year-old Greek child named George Nastos, the injury of his brother Athanasius, and thirteen other individuals. The incident stirred anger among the Greek populace, with some demanding retribution even during the child's funeral. This sentiment placed considerable pressure on the government to respond to the PFLP's recurrent attacks on Greek soil.

The act of killing and injuring children from a nation not involved in the conflict reinforced the perception that the PFLP was a promoter of terrorism rather than a participant in a military conflict. Days after the attack, the deputy prime minister, Stylianos Pattakos, remarked that, ‘Committing such murderous acts in a neutral territory, under the guise of a military operation, demonstrates a profound reluctance to self-sacrifice for a just cause and amounts to nothing more than an act of cowardice’. Although Pattakos believed in the just cause of the Palestinians, he viewed their assertion that the targeting of an El Al office on Greek soil was part of a military operation as hypocritical. ⁵⁴

The Greek government initially scheduled the trial for December of 1969 but, still facing Arab pressure, subsequently postponed it to February 1970, only to face further delays. ⁵⁵

Ultimately, the American government, attaching significance to the trial as an important element in its campaign to cast these types of attacks as terrorism and eradicate them, exerted pressure on Greece, leading to the trial's commencement in March of 1970. The international interest in the trial was also evident during the inaugural session. Five diplomats, including several ambassadors representing Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, and Syria, attended to observe the court proceedings. The defense filed a petition requesting a trial delay due to the unavailability of Arab witnesses who had not arrived in time to testify. In response, the prosecutor countered Arab countries had backed the defendants and permitted their training for the attack on their territory, asking rhetorically, ‘Do we anticipate that these same authorities have any intention of expediting this trial?’ After a lengthy deliberation, the court rejected the motion. ⁵⁶

Unlike the trial in Kolten in which, due to the silence of the Palestinian defendants, the Israeli narrative dominated, the trial in Athens was likely to focus on the Palestinians and benefit their aim to advance a political narrative of the attacks. The Israelis would have no representation in the courtroom, although they worked hard, both in meetings with Greek authorities and through their international allies, to assure the trial would be a criminal and not political one. ⁵⁷

Throughout the proceedings, the defense maintained that the actions of the assailants constituted a military operation and that Mohamad Mahmud and Suleiman Maher were POWs. Mahmud elucidated that he and his friend targeted the El Al plane because it served the Israeli military. To support their argument, they pointed to the fact that they had spared El Al passengers, ‘which they could have “brought down like birds”’. Defense witnesses, including Fayek Anabtawi, a Jordanian law professor, testified that the defendants’ superiors had ordered them to destroy the plane while ensuring no harm to passengers. Failure to obey these orders would have resulted in the two being court martialed by the PFLP. ⁵⁸

The prosecution countered the argument that Mahmud and Maher were POWs. The status of POW was restricted to members of a state or an internationally acknowledged resistance movement, which the PFLP was not. The prosecutor then added that, ‘Heroes stand out on the battle field and not in neutral airports or plazas where innocent people walk or visit’. ⁵⁹

At a certain juncture during the trial, the judge intervened when the defense lawyers attempted to use the proceedings as a platform to highlight the Palestinian cause. ‘We are not here to solve differences dividing Arabs and Israelis’, he firmly stated. ‘We are trying the two defendants for the attack against an El Al Airliner’. Additionally, the judge instructed the defense attorneys to abstain from holding any news conferences, which echoed the activities of the Arab attorneys in Switzerland in their effort to advance their political perspective during the trial. Ultimately, the court conducted the trial in a manner consistent with an ordinary criminal proceeding, avoiding the intrusion of sensitive political issues. ⁶⁰

After three days of hearings, on March 26, the court rendered its verdict, finding Mahmud and Maher guilty of multiple charges, including interfering with the security of civil aircraft, arson, possession of explosives, and the use of fire. While convicting the defendants of manslaughter, the court dropped the charge of premeditated murder. Additionally, it acquitted them of the attempted murder charge concerning fifty-two El Al passengers. The court also acknowledged extenuating circumstances, as presented by the attorneys, citing the defendants’ actions in the context of their national patriotism and their compliance with PFLP orders. ⁶¹

Upon hearing the verdict, jubilation swept through the Arab audience present in the courtroom. The Rev. Hanna Sakkab, an Orthodox priest from Beirut, told reporters that the verdict was ‘a victory [for] the Arab struggle because they have given us a right; they have considered the action of these two men as a legal struggle for freedom and liberation’. ⁶²

As the judges retired to determine the sentence, many in the courtroom anticipated that the court would render a reduced sentence of five to six years. When they returned, the defendants and their supporters were deeply disappointed. The court sentenced Mahmoud Mohammad to seventeen years and five months and Maher Suleiman to fourteen years and three months, respectively, each receiving more time than the prosecutor requested. Diplomats perceived the Greek court decision as a balancing act between placing the ground attack within the parameters of both criminal and International Humanitarian Law: on the one hand, the verdict aimed to acknowledge the Palestinian perspective by refraining from convicting the defendants for premeditated murder, acknowledging their patriotism, and acquitting them from the attempted murder of fifty-three passengers, accepting they had acted under military rule. On the other hand, the court sought to deliver a stern sentence that would appease domestic public opinion and convey a powerful message discouraging future attacks of a similar nature. ⁶³

Just four months after the issuance of the verdict, Palestinians hijacked an Olympic Airways plane and landed it in Athens. Their demand was the release of the prisoners jailed in Greek prisons for the attacks on the El Al plane and offices, as well the release of three armed Lebanese caught by Athens airport police in their attempt to hijack a TWA plane. After eight hours of negotiations, the Greek government agreed to release the seven Palestinian prisoners within a month in exchange for the passengers. ⁶⁴

A month and a half after the hijacking in Greece, and, a few weeks later, the freeing of the seven PFLP members, coordinated hijackings executed by the PFLP brought three Western planes to Dawson airstrip in the Jordanian Desert. The hijackers demanded the freeing of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners form Israeli and European prisons. As a result, after a year and nine months of negotiations, the Swiss freed Abu el Heiga, Dahbour, and Tewfik from their prison cells and transported them to Cairo. ⁶⁵

In their respective verdicts, both the Kolten and Athens courts embraced the perspective that the assaults on the El Al planes constituted terrorist attacks on international transportation. In Switzerland, the court characterized the attack as a reprehensible and criminal act against a civilian passenger aircraft. The Greek court acquitted the defendants of premeditated murder but imposed severe penalties for their actions targeting a civilian plane and an airport in a nation not involved in their home conflict. This stance by the court appeared to underscore its recognition of the attack as an inherently grave offense even if it did not result in the death of civilians. The concern expressed by Israel's attorney General, Gabriel Bach, that these early verdicts might set a low threshold of punishment for acts of international terrorism did not fulfill itself. On the contrary, the courts unequivocally expressed their abhorrence for such attacks. ⁶⁶

The significance of the verdicts in Switzerland and Greece traveled far beyond the borders of both countries. It was the first tangible signal that major national actors would not tolerate acts of international terrorism as they began to spread. Following the Kolten verdict, one Swiss newspaper, Der Bund, wrote words that would also come to apply to the trial in Greece: ‘Most states are calling on the authorities and world organizations, especially the UN, to take severe sanctions against this new type of world crime. A small state has now made an example’. From the paper's perspective, the Swiss verdict showed international organizations how to react to aviation terrorism through legal means. ⁶⁷

The UN Secretary General U Thant also refused to recognize a political dimension to hijackings and overlook their threat. Following the Kolten February 1969 attack, he issued the following statement:

Such attacks involving, as they do, a great risk to innocent persons and the disruption of an important branch of international communication are a matter of urgent concern to all governments and peoples. If the hitherto peaceful world of civil aviation is to be saved from chaos and anarchy, the governments and peoples, regardless of their political views, must condemn acts of this kind and take all possible measures to prevent them. ⁶⁸

In forthcoming international conventions some of the legal provisions concerning aviation terrorism aligned with the Zurich and Athens court rulings classifying the attacks as acts of terror. For instance, the Montreal Convention, mirroring the language of the Hague Convention, criminalized a ground attack on an aircraft. It defined a plane as being ‘in flight’ from the point of closing all external doors after embarkation to the opening of any such door for disembarkation. This broad definition encompassed scenarios where attacks or hijackings occurred not in the air but on the ground, allowing for cases such as the Athens and Zurich ground attacks to fall under the convention's jurisdiction. ⁶⁹

The Montreal Convention, in alignment with the court rulings, took the criminalization of ground attacks even further. It broadened the treaty's scope, considering an aircraft ‘in service’ from the start of preflight preparations by ground personnel or crew to twenty-four hours after landing. Under this convention, assaults on grounded civilian aircraft were deemed criminal, encompassing actions such as destroying or damaging an aircraft while in service, a scenario that matched attacks similar to the one in Athens. ⁷⁰

Garnering ratification of the conventions from nations aligned with the Global South, whose representatives sympathized with the Palestinian cause, proved challenging. For many, plane attacks were viewed as legitimate acts of liberation. Together with some Western nations, these nations vehemently opposed the US demand for extradition, which the Americans sought in their effort to achieve deterrence. Only after the drafters included in addition to extradition the option to ‘submit the case to competent authorities for prosecution’ did resistant nations agree to sign. The formulation obliged them ‘to submit’ and not ‘to prosecute’. In the end these nations, too, feared the spread of hijackings and other airborne assaults and, with this new formulation, could comfortably ratify the conventions. ⁷¹

Nevertheless, while the framing of these attacks was one of a terrorist act against an innocent civil population, in the years to come, hijackings and the targeting of airlines did not abate. The media attention generated by these operations continued to elevate the Palestinian conflict to the attention of the world and served as a catalyst for further attacks on international air transport, allowing the practice to become an instrumental tool of leverage for other conflicts around the world.

From the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, the US and European countries advanced the legal approach to combating international terrorism demonstrated in The Hague and Montreal Conventions. This view would change only in the mid-1980s after the violent hijackings of American planes to places such as Lebanon. Israel also pursued the legal path in the Zurich and Athens trials, but would shortly thereafter abandon this approach. Seeing the Zurich and Athens assailants freed from jail in 1970 after multiple hijackings, the Israelis concluded that the legal approach was not effective and resorted to the militant approach, best exemplified in the Entebbe operation. ⁷²