Hostages’ Arab Wives Won’t Go to Israel
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BEIRUT — The wife of hostage American Jesse Turner said today that as an Arab, she could not heed his plea that she and three other wives go to Israel to discuss a swap of their husbands for Arabs held there.
“I am an Arab and Mrs. Feryal Polhill is an Arab,” Badr Turner, 35, a Lebanese, said. “We cannot go to Israel.”
Feryal Polhill asked: “How would it be possible for me to go to Israel? I do not even consider going to Israel because it is against my belief in the Arab cause.”
The four hostages, kidnaped by Muslim extremists on Jan. 24 from Beirut University College campus in West Beirut, are educators Turner, Alann Steen, Robert Polhill and Mithileshwar Singh, an Indian and a resident alien of the United States.
Turner said in a videotape released Thursday by the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine that Steen is ill and dying.
He called on the hostages’ wives to visit Israel and the United States to try to win their release.
The kidnapers said this week they are ready to free Steen if America succeeds in getting Israel to release 100 Arab prisoners.
Israel refused to negotiate with the hostage-holders.
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