Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was founded in 1967 and is ideologically part of left-wing pan-Arabism. It operates politically, terroristically and militarily.
Its central goal is the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, which is to be replaced by a socialist Arab state.
The list of their terrorist attacks is long. Among others, the hijacking of the Lufthansa plane Landshut and the murder of the pilot can be attributed to them (1977).
Switzerland was also affected by the terror of the PFLP:
- In 1969, assassins attacked an Israeli El Al airplane in Kloten ZH and killed the pilot.
- In 1970, the PFLP hijacks four airplanes in a coordinated operation; a fifth hijacking fails. The Swissair, BOAC and TWA planes are forced to land at the disused Dawson’s Field airfield near Zarqa in Jordan. A grueling war of nerves develops over the release of the hostages in exchange for Palestinian terrorists. These included the assassins who were in prison in Switzerland for the attack in Kloten on February 18, 1969.
- Swissair flight 330: In February 1970, a bomb exploded in the cargo hold of a Swissair Coronado on a flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv shortly after take-off. The plane crashed into a forest near Würenlingen AG. All 47 occupants were killed.
- George Habasch, a former doctor at the children’s hospital in Zurich who had founded the PFLP after returning home, claimed responsibility for the bomb attack. The Swiss prosecution authorities never prosecuted and convicted those responsible for the attack.
At the beginning of 2016, NZZ journalist Marcel Gyr, author of the book Swiss Terror Years, published the thesis that there had been contact between the PLO and the then Swiss Foreign Minister, Federal Councillor Pierre Graber, after September 6, 1970. A secret standstill agreement had probably been concluded between Switzerland and the PLO.
