Rosner's guest: David Raab

David Raab, author of the newly released Terror in Black September is a strategy and organization consultant. At age 17, on his flight back to the United States in September 1970 after a summer visit to Israel, Raab was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to Jordan on a quadruple hijacking day. Separated from his family, he was held hostage in Jordan for three weeks through a civil war.

Since the early 1990s, Raab has been engaged in Middle East affairs and served as the chairman of the North Jersey Political Action Committee (NORPAC), a member of the AIPAC Executive Committee, a trustee of UJA Federation of Bergen County New Jersey, and a member of the board of directors of the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce. More recently, he has focused on enhancing democracy in Israel. His previous book is Accountability to the People: Instituting Single-Member Electoral Districts for Israel's Knesset (Citizens' Empowerment Center in Israel, 2007). Raab and his wife Leah, an artist, live in Raanana, Israel (more bio here).

We will discuss his new book. Readers can send questions to rosnersdomain@haaretz.co.il.



Dear Mr. Raab,

Your personal story seems fascinating and I understand why you felt the need to write it down and even publish it. But how such personal story turns a man into an expert on terrorism I don't understand. Do you really feel that your experience dozens of years ago is such that we should now listen to your advice?

With respect,

W. Danville
Texas

Dear Mr. Danville,

Both personally and professionally as a management consultant, I try to convince others not through credentials, but by dint of argument and supporting evidence. In this instance in particular, I have thought a lot over the years about dealing with terrorists and terrorism. I have thought about it not only as a victim of terrorism, which is reason enough, but as someone who supported the Oslo process only to see it disintegrate entirely when the Palestinians reverted to their strategy of violence and as someone who has lived in Israel through the second Intifada, the Hizbollah terrorism in the north, and now the daily rocket attacks on Sderot. And while I am not a professional political pundit, over the past decade and a half I have been intensely immersed in thinking about Middle East policy questions, including when I served on AIPAC's Executive Committee and when I worked with members of Congress to gain Israel's inclusion for the first time in key committees of the United Nations.

Several of my pieces analyzing the situation in the Middle East have been published in the Anglo-Jewish media in the United States and Israel; others have been published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli think tank. Professionally, too, I regularly analyze highly complex situations and advise my senior executive clients on how to respond accordingly.

In closing, I would like to emphasize that my book, Terror in Black September, is a history-memoir with no political agenda. Indeed, I am not the world's expert on terrorism, and I certainly do not have all the answers. However, I wrote my book and made a point to make it a complete history and not just a memoir because I believe that the story is relevant to and does provide context and insight for the global terrorism that we see today. (Presumably my renowned publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, agrees.) I have tried in my interview here on Rosner's Domain this week to bring out what I see as these connections and lessons as logically and clearly as I can. Obviously, I encourage you and others to read the book and decide for yourselves.

Dear David,

So you're not of those accepting the premise - the Israeli government was making this argument - that an American pullout from Iraq will have devastating consequences? I just heard Senator McCain today saying exactly the opposite of what you're saying. He argues that Iraq IS a front in the war against terror. Can you explain why you don't agree with that?


Dear Shmuel,

No, I very much believe that an American cut-and-run from Iraq would not only have devastating consequences on Iraq in terms of the chaos and bloodshed that would surely escalate, but it would send a powerful message to the world?a message very harmful to American interests' of America's lack of perseverance in seeing a war that it starts through to its successful conclusion. Terrorist groups, like al-Qaeda, would quickly draw an inference to America's war on terror and conclude that America will at some point lose its resolve and fortitude in fighting terror, particularly on foreign soil.

In my previous response to you, the point I was trying to make was that Iraq has de facto diverted our attention from our war on terrorism, initiated after 9/11. Iraq is not the focal point of the terror threat on America; Iraqi-based terrorism is focused on targets within Iraq and is not a threat to America or Europe. While Senator John McCain does indeed argue that Iraq is a front in the war against terror, it may be more because he is concerned that ?failure there would turn Iraq into a terrorist sanctuary, in the heart of the Middle East, next door to Iran, the world's largest state-sponsor of terrorism? as he stated on September 18th on the Senate floor. And even he acknowledged that Iran, not Iraq, is the world's largest state-sponsor of terrorism.

Furthermore, under the radar screen and perhaps because of our distraction in Iraq, "a resurgent Al Qaeda has significantly strengthened in the past two years in mountainous redoubts near the Afghanistan border," according to the National Intelligence Estimate, which represents the consensus view of the 16 agencies that comprise America's intelligence community. The report determined that the United States would face a "persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years." Similarly, John Scott Redd, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, "[W]e are not safe. Nor are we likely to be for a generation or more."

So my point was and is: although I am certainly not privy to all our anti-terrorism initiatives and resources, it seems that Iraq has led us to take our eye off the terrorism ball. We must reprioritize the war on terrorism and make sure that it in fact receives the resources that it needs. Iraq is an imponderable mess that we cannot just flee from, but terrorism both Iranian and al-Qaeda inspired is in fact the larger threat to our safety and security.


Dear David,

2 readers wrote me that they were confused and didn't quite understand your point. You ask to "fight for peace and tranquility". What will you do as to achieve this peace and tranquility?


Dear Shmuel,

It is hard to know what is or is not going on behind the scenes today in America's battle against terrorism. However, it seems to me that in order for us to attain the peace and tranquility of not having to worry about a repeat of 9/11 or worse; not having to see rifle-toting, camouflaged National Guard troops standing sentry at our bridges and national monuments; and not having to worry that al-Queda might next send suicide bombers to our movie theaters and supermarkets, we need to take several steps. I briefly address some of them below; each deserves greater discussion.

Change our mindset. Perhaps first and most importantly, we need to reengage the collective American mindset. The consensus anger, fear, and clarity of vision regarding the terrorist threat to America immediately following 9/11 seems to be fading, especially since there has been no subsequent attack yet. But we must come to grips with fact that there are well-organized, well-financed groups around the world, likely even within the United States, who are committed and actively plotting to destroy our way of life and our country. The fact that we have seen no overt manifestation here in the United States over the past few years means only that we have been lucky. Just within the last two weeks, German police arrested three suspected Islamic militants who were planning "massive" and "imminent" attacks on American targets in Germany. 9/11 was not the end, and perhaps not even the worst. There is a war being waged and we must all recognize it as such.

Get real. As mentioned in my response to your first question, our fight against terror is not a fight against the Arab world or Islam. But conversely, airport security frisking my 12-year-old niece or an elderly woman in a wheelchair who could barely move does not enhance my comfort that we are clear about what we are looking for and have the situation under control. Similarly, British Prime Minister Brown's recent ban for his ministers from using the word "Muslim" in ¬connection with the terrorism crisis is sticking one?s head in the sand. While it is wrong to profile people based only on their nationality or religion, I also certainly do not want my life put at risk simply for the sake of political correctness.

Focus. It boggles the mind that, despite the full resources of America the superpower, Osama Bin-Laden still roams around a free man after six years. While the war in Iraq may have been initiated as part of the war on terror, today Iraq is a distraction from it. At this moment, terrorism is a bigger threat to our well-being than Iraq is, yet an overwhelming proportion of our military resources are being consumed in Iraq. We must realign our priorities and resources to be sure that we are properly fighting our key threat today?terrorism.

Act resolutely. We must act resolutely and aggressively to root out terrorism regardless of what criticism we may receive from our friends the Europeans and certain of our own media. Though totally justified in his actions in 1970 as the PLO was set to take over his country, King Hussein too was attacked by fellow Arab countries and western media. But he resolutely proceeded because he knew what he needed to do to save his country. Of course we would prefer for our allies to stand unabashedly at our side in our fight on terrorism. But we should not cede our own defense and security needs to the will of the European countries, who have their own interests and domestic and geopolitical calculations.

Act relentlessly. There is no compromising with terrorism, as conciliation is taken as a sign of weakness. The United States has at times not responded aggressively to terrorism against it. The United States has also at times bound Israel's hands in its fight against Palestinian terror. This approach sends an absolute wrong signal that one can get away with murder. Restraint does not defeat terror.

Recognize that there is a necessary price. As in any other war, there is a cost to fighting terrorism. King Hussein acted despite the fact that 54 foreign hostages were still sitting in his country who could have been killed in response to his actions, let alone by accident. Terrorists cruelly use innocent civilians as human shields, and cynically exploit the freedoms of democracy to plan and execute their devious acts. While I certainly don't want my civil rights trampled on or innocent human beings to be killed, we must recognize that terrorism cannot be successfully fought without some fallout. As King Hussein pointed out, his war on terror was an operation needed in order to save the patient.

Go after the source. Terrorism does not exist in a vacuum. Much of terror today is being sponsored and financed today by Iran and by wealthy Saudi Arabians. We cannot fight terror without going after its sources.

Convince of futility and self-destructiveness. Perhaps the only way to really stop terrorism is, by our actions, to convince would-be terrorists and the societies that harbor them that terrorism is not only futile - that it will not get them what they want - but is ultimately more harmful to themselves than it is to their targets. Looking back over the years, it is clear that Palestinian terror has harmed the Palestinians more than it has harmed Israel, which has developed into a modern society, whereas it has brought only death, destruction, and hardship (checkpoints, separation fences, etc.) upon the Palestinians themselves. Only if they see absolutely no hope of success might terrorists give up their malicious designs.


Dear David,

And what about the more personal lessons you've learned? After all, it was a personal experience for you - not a distant event on the evening news.

I did indeed learn quite a lot from my experience. First and foremost, fly El Al! Of five hijacking attempts that week, only the El Al attempt was foiled! Unfortunately, I had flown TWA.

But more seriously, I believe that I came away from the hijackings with an altered sense of priorities of what is important in life. Having lived under constant fear of death for three weeks, getting by on little food and water, being separated from my mother and siblings sure that I was being taken to be killed, I truly am grateful just for being alive and for everything I have. Yes, I do strive like most others to improve my financial lot and I do very much appreciate the finer things in life. But achieving career, wealth, or possessions are not at all what drive me. And more broadly I try to keep daily trials and tribulations in perspective, realizing how unimportant and inessential so many things are.

At the same time, I believe that after the hijackings I became obsessed with Israel. Although I come from a Zionist family, I have developed what I think is an unusually deep and visceral bond to Israel. Perhaps this was because I felt that I had been written into Israel's history, my destiny intertwined with Israel's own. I moved to Israel the year after my captivity and have been intensely involved ever since - in pro-Israel political action while living in the United States or, while living in Israel, in trying to reform Israel's electoral system - to help make sure that Israel remains strong and vibrant, democratic and Jewish.

Interestingly, it seems that I was not the only hostage who developed a close affinity to Israel. At least 15 of the 78 American Jews who were held captive on the planes in the desert subsequently made aliya. At almost 20%, that is an astounding percentage.

While I do believe that most people are good, I got a glimpse in Jordan into how cruel man can be and how helpless his victim can be. True, I never came to physical harm. Nonetheless, some group of people had decided to snatch me, a 17-year-old American, my mother, and my younger siblings out of our innocent lives and take total control over our fate. With the power to kill us at whim, feed us or not, beat us or not. They thrust us into highly dangerous situations where the potential for even accidental death was real. And sadly, no government or even the International Committee of the Red Cross would have been able to prevent the worst from happening to us had the PFLP decided that the time had come to do so.

I also felt how lonely it can be to be a Jew. I still recall the feeling as I was left standing on the desert floor with other Jewish children and women, surrounded by machine-gun-toting terrorists, with twilight?s gloom enveloping us, after all the non-Jewish women and children had been called to be taken to hotels in Amman. To me the scene evoked the sensation of being in a concentration camp during the Holocaust just 25 years earlier; to the survivors among us, it was a nightmare relived. Then back aboard the plane during the week, I knew that Jews including my mother were being interrogated, and some were being threatened. And, sitting in the darkness at night, I would become morose, thinking how lost and forlorn we Jews felt not knowing when the axe might fall on us and realizing that even our non-Jewish fellow travelers could not comprehend our fears.

I came to grasp another fact of life even while still in captivity. While I hoped that the U.S. government would work unceasingly to get us?its citizens?out and believed that it was doing so, I realized in short order that it could not and would not do so at all costs. I understood that a country's national interests cannot be subverted to the will of terrorists, even at the expense of hostages' lives. We hostages talked to each other about the possibility that we might not survive and just hoped that if we were killed, our deaths would not be in vain, that somehow they would be used as a pretext to wipe out the Palestinian guerrillas.

Finally, with the passage of time - as terrorists became increasingly brutal, as my understanding deepened with age, and as I discovered while researching my book just how dire our situation was - I increasingly appreciated just how miraculous it was that we all got out safely. I thank God every day, and every year commemorate the date of my release on the Jewish calendar.

Dear David,

Is this a story you wrote because you thought it was interesting - or do you feel that your personal story has some meaningful lessons that one needs to learn today? And what would that lesson be?

I did not write Terror in Black September just to tell my personal story. That I could have written long ago. Rather, I wrote my book when I realized that no book had ever been written on the momentous, relevant, and fascinating human drama and historical watershed of September 1970 in Jordan.

The affair started on Sunday, September 6, as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine executed one of the most audacious terror acts ever, certainly before 9/11 - four hijack attempts in one day, including one plane being blown up in Cairo only seconds after the last passenger cleared its wing. Two planes were taken to the desert floor in Jordan. Seventeen years old at the time, I was aboard one of them.

American and world attention were riveted to the news, as over 100 American and other hostages sat on unpowered planes in desert for a week, with yet another hijacked plane being brought there midweek. After a week, the PFLP spectacularly blew up all three planes and released most of the passengers but held 16 Europeans and 38 Americans, including me, hostage. King Hussein then waged a bloody war against Yasser Arafat's PLO ensued, during which Syria invaded Jordan to aid the PLO. Its incursion nearly triggered a head-to-head U.S.-Soviet confrontation, as both countries beefed up their naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean. Israel massed forces at the Jordanian border and over-flew the invading Syrian forces in preparation for a possible intervention at the request of both King Hussein and the United States. In the end King Hussein, on his own, repulsed the Syrian forces and put down the PLO.

September 1970 changed the course of Middle East history. Anwar Sadat and Hafez Assad took over their respective countries as a direct result of the war. King Hussein initiated low-intensity warfare against the PLO until July 1971, when he booted them out of Jordan and they settled in Lebanon. The terror group Black September, formed and named in commemoration of the Palestinian casualties incurred during the eponymous month, perpetrated the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972. And the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship evolved out of Israel's willingness to act on the United States' request to help save King Hussein.

While Terror in Black September is a history, not a political book, I believe that several lessons for today can indeed be culled out. First, we see clearly from the events of the time that Palestinian terrorism is not new and that its objectives, certainly then, were to destroy Israel. The hijackings of September 1970 preceded checkpoints, house demolitions, or the separation fence, which are often cited as the motivators of Palestinian terror. In fact, Palestinian terror groups, including the PLO and Fatah, existed even before the "occupation," which came about in 1967 when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan.

The events of Black September also inform us all on the roots of today's terrorism, as al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremists not only learned the techniques of Palestinian terror, but saw terrorism going unpunished. Back in 1970, the hijackers and other terrorists were released by European countries and went off scot free, and this pattern continued in subsequent years as the world refused to fight terrorism aggressively and even restrained Israel when it acted to do so.

But perhaps the most important lesson from September 1970 in our fight against terrorism today can be drawn from King Hussein. After years of trying to mollycoddle the PLO, even offering Yasser Arafat the premiership of Jordan at one point, the hijackings made King Hussein finally realize that there is no appeasing terrorists or rationalizing terrorism away. The longer one waits to confront it, the heavier a price one pays. Hussein concluded that terrorism is a 'cancer' that needs to be pursued resolutely and relentlessly until eradicated completely. He pursued his war on terrorism with calm conviction and clarity of vision, despite the criticism of other Arab countries and Western media.

We can learn from the way he did it, too: he specifically appointed a prime minister of Palestinian origin to oversee the fighting to send a message: he was not fighting against Palestinians, but for law and order. By extension, our fight against terrorism today is not an attack against the Palestinians, against the Arab World, or against Islam. Rather it is a fight for peace and tranquility, for civilized society, for our way of life. It is directed only against those who design to murder or destroy us. We must not be reticent and need not apologize for our efforts.

Sadly, I don't have a comfort level that the world is confronting terrorism as resolutely as it should be. Unfortunately, I feel that what happened to me 37 years ago, or worse, can happen again to anyone boarding a plane today.