Thread by @DavidCranmerUn1

Operation Nickel Grass - Wikipedia

The Soviet Union had supplied Egypt and Syria over 600 advanced surface-to-air missiles, 300 MiG-21 fighters, 1,200 tanks, and hundreds of thousands of tons of war material.[1] Seeing Israel's vulnerable position, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation…

Henry Kissinger, the United States Secretary of State and President Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser, made arrangements for El Al to pick up some items, including ammunition, "high technology products" and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles at a US naval base in Virginia.

Aryeh Pincus, a lawyer from South Africa, was elected head of the company. The first international flight, from Tel Aviv to Paris, with refueling in Rome, took place on 31 July 1949.[16][17] By the end of 1949, the airline had flown passengers to London and Johannesburg. A

state-run domestic airline, Israel Inland Airlines, was founded in 1949 in which El Al had a 50% stake.[when?][16]
From its earliest days, the operation of the airline in keeping with Jewish tradition has been a source of friction; when the Israeli prime minister David

Ben-Gurion was forming his first coalition, the religious parties would not join unless Ben-Gurion promised that El Al would serve only kosher food on its flights and would not fly on the Jewish Sabbath.

A regular service to London was inaugurated in the middle of 1950. Later that year, El Al acquired Universal Airways, which was owned by South African Zionists.

In 1950–1951 El Al expanded its activities in Europe and added new destinations such as Vienna and Istanbul, Athens and Nicosia.

The airline was involved in several covert operations: In the early 1950s, El Al airlifted over 160,000 immigrants to Israel from Iran, Iraq and

Yemen as part of Operation Magic Carpet and Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.[21] In 1960, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was captured and flown from Argentina to Israel on an El Al aircraft.

The operation was conducted by the Near East Transport Company and the Israeli national airline El Al. The flights began in mid-May 1951, when Iraqi Jews were airlifted to Cyprus, from where they were flown to Israel. Several months later, a giant airlift operated directly from

Baghdad to Lod Airport. Operation Ezra and Nehemiah ended in early 1952, leaving only about 6,000 Jews in Iraq. Most of the 2,800-year-old Jewish community immigrated to Israel.

The Operation Magic Carpet was the first in a series of operations. Israel sees the rescue operation

as a successful rescue of Yemen's community from oppression toward redemption.

Operation Magic Carpet is a widely known nickname for Operation On Wings of Eagles (Hebrew: כנפי נשרים, Kanfei Nesharim), an operation between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 49,000

Yemenite Jews to the new state of Israel.

El Al flights to Cairo were inaugurated in April 1980, following the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty.

Flights to Poland and Yugoslavia were started in 1989.

Early that year, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, El Al inaugurated regular flights to Moscow. No airlifts from the former Soviet Union were possible at the time but permission was granted in 1991. Charter flights commenced in August 1991, with immigrants also

occupying all available seats on El Al's scheduled routes.

Epstein was an active IAF pilot from 1956 until May 26, 1997, when he retired at age 59. Like many retired IAF flyers, he later worked as a pilot for El Al Airlines.

He went on to command Mirage and Kfir squadrons and was flying "ready" missions in the F-16 up until his 59th birthday. Epstein was a captain for El Al Airlines from 1977 to 1997.
Epstein was the primary subject of the "Desert Aces" episode of The History Channel series Dogfights