Word: larnaca
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...flown to Cyprus to negotiate the release from prison of three of their friends and comrades. They were referring, apparently, to two Arabs and a young Briton who were sentenced to life imprisonment last year for the murder of three Israelis aboard a yacht in the port of Larnaca. The convicted trio claimed the Israelis were intelligence agents posing as tourists, a charge that Israel denied. The three were believed to be members of Force 17, the personal bodyguard of Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Briton, Ian Michael Davison, 29, was known to have fought...
...Greek Cypriot government of President Spyros Kyprianou, the Karachi hijacking presented a dilemma. Cyprus is anxious not to antagonize its Arab neighbors, but is determined to do everything it can to discourage hijackers from landing at Larnaca airport. As soon as the terrorists demanded they be flown to the eastern Mediterranean island, the Cypriot government announced that the jumbo jet would not be allowed to land there. Whether the Cypriots would have remained firm in their resolve if the Pan Am plane had arrived in their air space is uncertain. "But fortunately," sighed one relieved Cypriot official, "our will...
...hijackers, it was hard to see how their action had remotely advanced any Palestinian political aims, which include the recovery of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. They had failed to spring their allies from prison in Larnaca or even to reach Cyprus themselves, and their murderous misadventure in Karachi had turned into a bloodbath that antagonized Pakistan, a Muslim country that has always been sympathetic to the Palestinians' demands...
...operation so far from home. This time, the Israelis flew some 1,500 miles across the Mediterranean, twice refueling in midair. The Israelis announced that the raid was in reprisal for the murder by terrorists a week earlier of three Israeli civilians on a yacht in the port of Larnaca, Cyprus. The Israelis were convinced that the attack, which took place on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, had been carried out by Force 17, a commando unit from the Fatah branch of the P.L.O., a claim the organization denied...
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres insisted that the raid had been a response to a recent increase in P.L.O. terrorism. Said he: "It was an act of self-defense. Period." The Yom Kippur murders at Larnaca had shocked Israelis and intensified the pressure on Peres to take decisive action. But ! in the Arab world last week, the view was that Israel's real aim had been to torpedo the peace process...