Terror in Black September: The First Eyewitness Accounts of the Infamous 1970 Hijackings

Thirty-seven years ago on September 6, Palestinian revolutionaries hijacked four airliners bound for New York. Two of the planes were flown to the desert outside of Amman, Jordan, and held there just as the Jordanian civil war erupted. Raab, a health-care executive, was a 17-year-old hostage on one of those planes, and he recounts the ordeal, which resulted in his being separated from his family and dragged back and forth across Jordan for weeks in fear for his life. Raab also attempts to narrate the larger story, from the tense, fractious multinational negotiations over the hostages to the conflict between the Jordanian army and the Palestinian guerrillas. It is an ambitious undertaking, one that Raab lacks the craft to achieve. While the book is painstakingly researched, the writing rarely comes alive, even in the most dramatic situations. The various sources—including Raab's account that he wrote soon after his release—seem to be stuck together rather than shaped. Still, much of the material is intrinsically fascinating and a sad reminder of how much and how little has changed. Four hijacking attempts in one day was a record that would stand alone for 31 years, until another September day in 2001. (Sept.)