Page 236 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

The hunger strike at the Western Wall, 1969
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A placard from the students' demonstration for opening the gates of the Soviet Union – one of many that took place in the
late sixties
defendants." The Head of the Youth Aliya Yosef Klarman declared that "the members of the Youth Aliya, in all the institutions, will conduct activities in solidarity with the condemned." With the encouragement of the World Zionist Organization and the initiative of municipalities, special rallies were held in various cities in Israel, in which tens of thousands of Israelis took part.
The operation to hijack the airplane – allegedly – failed, but in retrospect it turned out to have succeeded above and beyond the expectations and that consequently two important goals were achieved: First, the Soviet authorities greatly increased the number of visas to Israel. In the three-year period of 1968-1970 they only permitted 4,000 Jews to make Aliya (230 in 1968, 3,000 in 1969 and 1,000 in 1970). By comparison, in the three years following the "Leningrad Trials," i.e. the years 1971-1973, they permitted about 78 thousand Jews to make Aliya (13 thousand in 1971, 31,600 in 1972 and 33,300 in 1973). Second, everyone come to realize that the Soviet Union is not impervious to strong international pressures.