Engineers in Israel Threaten to Move to U.S.

Aircraft engineers, angry at a government decision to scrap the controversial Lavi fighter, met U.S. and Canadian embassy officials today for talks on emigration procedures and job opportunities.

“We asked what we have to do in order to settle in America, what information is available on finding work there,” engineer Daniel Yaacov told armed forces radio.

About 300 workers from the state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries lined up quietly at the embassies’ visa sections in what was both a quest for information and a form of protest, organizers said.

The move came less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir warned of the dangers of a “brain drain” of Israeli technicians, which he said could have grave consequences for the Jewish state’s security.

“After all, it is brainpower that gives Israel the qualitative edge over the numerical advantages of our enemies,” he told a congress of lawyers.

The third consecutive day of demonstrations by aircraft workers was markedly quieter than the previous 48 hours of often-violent protest since the Cabinet voted 12-11 to abandon the prestigious but costly Lavi program.

In Jerusalem’s Old City, hundreds of the aircraft workers visited the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, in what they called an act of mourning for the advanced fighter-bomber.

Police prevented the workers from bringing a large model of the plane to the site.

Militants who prepared coffins named for Cabinet ministers Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Nissim and Ezer Weizman were persuaded by fellow workers to leave the caskets on their chartered buses, Israel radio reported.

The four ministers all voted to kill the Lavi project. Peres, Rabin and Weizman represent the Labor Party in the coalition government, with Finance Minister Nissim the only member of the right-wing Likud bloc to vote with them.