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The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/El Al.md

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tags category summary start location updated
Organization
Private
Israel
Transportation
Private Organization El Al is the Israeli national airline that played a role in the covert arms shipments and financial transactions described by Ari Ben-Menashe in his account of Israeli-American intelligence cooperation. 1948 Tel Aviv, Israel 2026-10-15

El Al is the national airline of Israel. It played a role in various covert operations and financial transactions detailed by Ari Ben-Menashe.

In January 1979, El Al was one of the last airlines to operate flights into Tehran before the airport closed, facilitating the departure of 48 Israeli aircrews who flew out F-14 jets from Iran.1

In April 1980, El Al was involved in the transport of tires sold to Iran, with a payment of $14,000 made to El Al for freight and insurance. The tires were flown from Israel to Vienna via El Al, then transferred to Iran Air by Israeli embassy personnel.1

In October 1980, El Al was used to transport Israeli personnel from Tel Aviv to Orly Airport in Paris for a top-secret meeting concerning the hostage release and arms deals. Later, electronic equipment acquired through a New York operation was usually flown by the IDF's weekly Boeing 707 flight from New York City to Tel Aviv, or by El Al cargo, before being transferred to Tehran via Argentinean charters.1

In April 1986 a bomb was found in the luggage of an Irish woman boarding an El Al flight from Heathrow Airport to Israel, and the Jordanian citizen Nezar Hindawi was convicted at the Old Bailey of attempting to place it aboard the aircraft.23 The 2011 High Court judgment records that the device was packed into a bag given to her by Hindawi, that she did not know what it contained, and that the aircraft carried 375 people.3 Howe told the House of Commons that the plot had official Syrian involvement, and Reagan credited Heathrow security with preventing the attack.45 Ari Ben-Menashe wrote in 1992 that the operation was an Israeli "black" propaganda operation orchestrated by Rafael Eitan to discredit Syria, that an Israeli security officer passed the parcel to the girlfriend in the El Al departure lounge, and that Israeli security foiled the plot.6

In 1988, El Al's first-class lounge at Heathrow Airport was the meeting place for Ari Ben-Menashe and David Ivry, director general of Israel's Ministry of Defense, to discuss the sale of C-130s to Iran.1

Footnotes

  1. Ben-Menashe, Ari. Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015). ↩︎

  2. Official record on the April 17, 1986 attempt and the October 24, 1986 conviction: [2011] EWHC 830 (QB), April 1, 2011, paras 1, 5 to 6. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/qb/2011/830 ↩︎

  3. Same judgment, para 5 (bag, timing device, 375 people on board). https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/qb/2011/830 ↩︎

  4. HC Deb 24 October 1986 vol 102 cc1504-14, "Anglo-Syrian Relations," statement by Sir Geoffrey Howe. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1986/oct/24/anglo-syrian-relations ↩︎

  5. Ronald Reagan, "United Kingdom-Syria Diplomatic Relations," statement, October 24, 1986, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/102486e ↩︎

  6. Ari Ben-Menashe, Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network (Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay, 2015), pp. 121 to 124. ↩︎