Slight wear and tear to dust cover. A year after Israel became a state, the refugee camps of Europe were still brimming with Jews wishing to emigrate, and the status of Jews throughout North Africa and the Middle East was precarious. Hence, El AlIsrael's national airlinewas assigned the mission of airlifting them quickly to the infant state. The scene was set for Operation Magic Carpet. On September 6, 1970, four daring hijack incidents were engineered by the Arabs' ultra-radical Popular Front. September 6 would be remembered as the blackest date in the history of civil aviation. But it would also be remembered for another reason: of all the planes attacked, only El Al's dared to continue to its scheduled destination. These are two of the hundreds of fascinating incidents that have gone into the making of El Al airlineand its story. Arnold Sherman was born in Brooklyn in 1932, and now lives in Israel. He has published a great many articles and stories, and his recent boo