Friday, April 18, 2003

After he talks, he could always go for a long swim
David Andelman in the NY Daily News - Don't give Italy 2nd shot at Abbas:
Don't send Abu Abbas back to Italy. They had their chance at him. And they blinked. I know. I was there.

It was late Thursday, Oct. 10, 1985. For three days, Abbas, leader of a breakaway PLO group called the Palestinian Liberation Front, had held hostage an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, carrying more than 400 passengers. Among them was a 69-year-old New York tourist in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer. In the course of the hijacking, Klinghoffer was shot and went over the side of the ship to his death.
And then he recounts the whole tawdry tale of the Italian government involvement.
The Italian government fell a couple of weeks later, after word got out about its perfidy and cowardice. Later, with the heat off, another Italian regime tried Abbas in absentia and sentenced him to life. Few thought they'd ever have to make good on it.

On Tuesday, U.S. forces finally got their hands on Abbas in Iraq. And now the Italians want him back? Basta!