Leila Khaled ? Hijacked by Destiny

[Danielle Ni Dhighe <danielle@xxxxxxxx>]

Arab News
17 October 2002

Leila Khaled ? Hijacked by Destiny
By Timur Moon

Palestinian fighter Leila Khaled sits discreetly in the backroom of
an old Palestinian chemist on London's Edgware Road. In her heyday
she hijacked airplanes. Portraits of the 1970s revolutionary swathed
in Arabic keffiyeh, clutching a Kalashnikov were as iconic as images
of Che Guevara.

In 1969, aged 25 and armed with grenades and handguns, she became the
first woman ever to hijack an airliner, diverting a TWA flight to
Damascus, where she escaped after securing the release of hostages in
exchange for political prisoners, and destroying the plane on the
ground.

Leila went on to undergo plastic surgery, and repeat the exercise on
a larger scale a year later, when she was involved in a coordinated
series of hijack operations culminating in the exploding of three
airliners in Jordan, and another in Egypt.

But Leila's attempt to gain control of an El Al flight in Amsterdam
went disastrously wrong. As she and her Nicaraguan accomplice Patrick
Arguello attempted to storm the cabin midair, the pilot pulled the
throttle, sending the plane into nosedive.

Arguello was shot dead in midair by plainclothes security guards, but
Leila escaped alive, spending 28 days in Ealing Jail before she was
freed in a deal between British Prime Minister Edward Heath and
Egypt's Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Laying down her arms after the birth of her first son in 1981, she
continued the struggle through the Marxist politics of the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while rising to be appointed
to the Palestinian National Council.

At 58, she exudes a terse reserve. After a lifetime of struggle, her
talk is staunch and incendiary.

We sit smoking cigarettes, as the tape runs.

Leila categorically rejects the charges of terrorism leveled at her,
portraying her hijack "operations" as successful bids to attract
worldwide attention to the plight of the Palestinians.

"There is a difference between terrorism and armed struggle. The
first time I participated in an operation they called me a terrorist.
I was young at the time and couldn't understand. In 1948 we were
screaming in agony, but nobody heard us. No one called the Zionist
gangs terrorists.

"Today freedom fighters are considered terrorists, and terrorists are
considered peacemakers. The capitalists have always created
instruments to make people believe their lies. This is globalization,
a new invention."

She recounts the story of a student from St. Andrews University in
Scotland, who contacted her requesting an interview.

"A young woman called to ask if she could come to Jordan and meet me
for help on her research project. I was astonished to hear that the
college had set up a department for terrorism studies.

"I told her, 'You have the wrong address. But I would like to
help you, so I will give you the addresses of Sharon, Netanyahu and
Bush.'

"We discussed how to change her thesis to differentiate between
terrorism and rightful struggle. Palestinians have the right under
international law, to struggle by all means, including armed
struggle."

She exudes a mordant humor: "I wonder how many universities in the
West are setting up such faculties ? perhaps I will apply!

"The new generation has such advanced technology. I am familiar only
with telephones ? and airplanes!"

Leila has no faith in any declared US intention to back Palestinian
statehood.

"Bush said it was the US vision to establish a Palestinian state, but
we have known this vision for 54 years and it has come to nothing.
Israel has refused to implement UN resolutions, and that has been
accepted."

And she levels the "terrorist" charge back at her declared
enemies. "Do you think we will believe these butchers? Israel's
Apache helicopters and F16s are manufactured in the US. Bush even
declared Sharon a man of peace. That is a sick joke. These are our
enemies."

She denounces the new precedents in international law ?
extrajudicial "targeted assassinations," punitive or "enforced
deportations" and pre-emptive detentions without charge ? now
being set by Israel and the US.

"The Israeli government favors the expulsion of the Palestinian
people from their occupied homeland," Leila asserts. "Likud and the
right-wingers want any Palestinian state to be set up in Jordan. They
have legalized enforced deportations. Ex-Tourism Minister Rehavam
Zeevi held these views, and we killed him. Avigdor Lieberman, another
right-wing extremist, is also calling for a 'transfer.'"

Aged four, Leila and her parents were forced to flee her hometown of
Haifa during the chaos of 1948. Years later, her sister was killed in
a botched assassination by Mossad, who mistook her for Leila. And her
own group's responses will come in kind, she says, vowing terrible
vengeance.

"We are against assassination, but when it is time to act, we will
act, because they have assassinated us constantly for 54 years. Do
you expect us to say 'OK, we accept it'? By violence they have
occupied the country, by violence we were driven out, and by violence
they have established their state. As long as there is occupation
there will be resistance. The Israeli government is violating
international law. As long as Sharon, Netanyahu and this gang of war
criminals are in control in Tel Aviv, the struggle will escalate. The
bloody history of Sharon is well known. But his future will be bloody
also. Palestinians know how to deal with such bloody people."

Out in the street we hail a taxi to the University of London's
School of Oriental and African Studies, where Leila is delivering a
lecture. We climb in and, as the tape rolls, she recounts details of
her hijacks.

"I had my pistol and my hand grenade," she recalls. "My comrade and I
had successfully boarded the plane."

The cabby bristles visibly.

"When Patrick was killed it was terrifying. Twelve people sprung up
shooting. I felt bad, very bad. I still remember him as an
international martyr for freedom. He fought for a just cause."

She attempts to defend the morality of the operation: "We hijacked
planes because the whole world was deaf when we were screaming from
our tents, and nobody heard our suffering. Until the beginning of the
revolution in 1967, Palestinians were only dealt with as people
needing humanitarian aid, not as people with a cause. We had to use
tactics to attract international attention.

"And afterward, the world asked 'who are the Palestinians? Why are
they doing this? How could a woman do such a thing?' So it worked,
just posing the question."

Leila's group, the PFLP, has recently backed sending bombers on
bloody resistance "operations."

"If someone chooses to explode his body among his enemies, we must
ask why?" she says. "We are struggling to live peacefully in our
homeland. A poor woman embroidering clothing is part of our struggle.
A woman bringing up a child to live in Palestine, suffering at the
checkpoints is part of our struggle. A doctor treating the wounded is
part of our struggle.

"This has been a gradual massacre. They are killing and killing and
killing, detaining people, destroying our homes, carving up the land,
cutting down olive groves, besieging the sacred places. Pregnant
women are held at checkpoints and refused access to hospitals.
Children are prevented from going to school and searched as if they
were suicide bombers.

"The Israelis have made life so miserable that the distance between
life and death is minimized. People are dying everywhere in
Palestine. If this injustice continues, then the bombings will
increase."

Despite her participation in hijacks, Leila rejects the charge that
she has, however unwittingly, helped inspire the kind of thinking
behind the 9/11 suicide hijacks, three decades after her
own "operations."

"That was an act of terror and did not serve a humanitarian cause,"
she says. "What we did was a means of struggle. We said why we were
doing the operation. Those who killed themselves and others in New
York had no cause.

"We didn't kill anybody. On the contrary, two of our colleagues
were killed. One man was even killed by Israeli security after he was
caught by British police."

After 50 years of struggle, her people have little to show for their
suffering.

"Where is our security?" Leila demands. "I'm now 58, and since
1944, the year I was born, I have never felt secure, even when
I'm surrounded by supporters. My birthday falls on the anniversary of
the 1948 Deir Yasin massacre. That is why I could never celebrate.
Every month there are events that remind us of the years of bloody
occupation."

And she sees little prospect that even their children will live any
better. "I am a mother of two. My children have the right to dream,
but what hope do they have? They are threatened because they are
Palestinian. My child doesn't have the right to live, let alone
continue his studies. I would dearly love to have a university
qualification.

"Do you expect my child to accept this life? Do you expect our
children to speak of gardens and flowers and sunshine, when they see
only Apache helicopters and F16s? I ask Bush and Blair, what do they
call these tanks and bulldozers; what do they call these massacres in
their language? Do you want us to answer such crimes with roses, or
bury our heads?

"We do not glorify death, we are the victims of those who want to
prevent us from living. We do not ask for miracles. We are not
fighting for death, we are struggling for our dignity. We want to
live."


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