Israeli Peace Activist Abie Nathan Dies 
Abie Nathan, a maverick Israeli peace activist, died on Wednesday, August 27, 2008. He was 81. Nathan famously piloted a private plane to then enemy Egypt in 1966 and was twice imprisoned by Israel for meeting Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat in the late 1980s and early 1990s when such contacts were illegal. In 1996, he met Mahmoud Zahhar of the Hamas Islamist movement. A former pilot for Israel's El Al airline, the Iranian-born Nathan worked for decades to secure humanitarian aid for disaster areas worldwide.