Leila Khaled

Leila Khaled
Born (1944-04-09) April 9, 1944
Haifa, Mandatory Palestine
Organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Leila Khaled (Arabic: ليلى خالد‎‎, Arabic pronunciation: [ˈlajla ˈxaːled] is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and an airline hijacker who was later released in a prisoner exchange for civilian hostages kidnapped by her fellow PFLP members.[1][2] The PFLP is described as a terrorist organization by the United States,[3] Canada,[4] and the European Union.[5]

Khaled came to public attention for her role in a 1969 hijacking and one of four simultaneous hijackings the following year as part of Black September. She is credited as the first woman to hijack an airplane.[6]

Early life

Khaled was born in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine to Palestinian parents.[7] Her family was forced to flee to Lebanon on 13 April 1948 as part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus,[7] leaving her father behind. At the age of 15, following in the footsteps of her brother, she joined the pan-Arab[8] Arab Nationalist Movement, originally started in the late 1940s by George Habash, then a medical student at the American University of Beirut.[9] The Palestinian branch of this movement became the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine after the 1967 Six-Day War.

Khaled also spent some time teaching in Kuwait and, in her autobiography, recounted crying the day she heard that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.[10]

The hijackings

Leila Khaled in Damascus after her release from the United Kingdom in 1970

TWA Flight 840 (1969)

On August 29, 1969, Khaled was part of a team that hijacked TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv, diverting the Boeing 707 to Damascus. According to some media sources,[1] the PFLP leadership thought that Yitzhak Rabin, then Israeli ambassador to the United States, would be on board; he was not. She claims she ordered the pilot to fly over Haifa, so she could see her birthplace.[11] No one was injured, but after the passengers disembarked, the hijackers blew up the nose section of the aircraft. After this hijacking, and after a now famous picture of her (taken by Eddie Adams) holding an AK-47 rifle and wearing a kaffiyeh was widely published, she underwent six plastic surgery operations on her nose and chin to conceal her identity and allow her to take part in a future hijacking, and because she did not want to wear the face of an icon.[12][13]

El Al Flight 219 (1970)

On September 6, 1970, Khaled and Patrick Argüello, a Nicaraguan-American, attempted the hijack of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York City as part of the Dawson's Field hijackings, a series of almost simultaneous hijackings carried out by the PFLP. The attack was foiled, when Israeli skymarshals killed Argüello before eventually overpowering Khaled. Although she was carrying two hand grenades at the time, Khaled said she had received very strict instructions not to threaten passengers on the civilian flight.[11] (Argüello shot a member of the flight crew.)[14]

The pilot diverted the aircraft to Heathrow airport in London, where Khaled was delivered to Ealing police station. On October 1, the British government released her in exchange for hostages taken in a further hijacking.[15]

Later life

Leila Khaled in Sweden

Khaled has said in interviews that she developed a fondness for the United Kingdom when her first visitor in jail, an immigration officer, wanted to know why she had arrived in the country without a valid visa. She also developed a relationship with the two policewomen assigned to guard her in Ealing and later corresponded with them. Khaled continued to return to the UK for speaking engagements until as late as 2002, although she was refused a visa by the British embassy in 2005 to address a meeting at the Féile an Phobail in Belfast, where she was invited as a speaker. Eventually she managed to speak to people at the Belfast Féile through a video link.[16]

Khaled is wary of the Arab-Israeli peace process. According to her, "It's not a peace process. It's a political process where the balance of forces is for the Israelis and not for us. They have all the cards to play with and the Palestinians have nothing to depend on, especially when the PLO is not united."[9] She has become involved in politics, becoming a member of the Palestinian National Council and appearing regularly at the World Social Forum.[17][18][19][20]

She is married to the physician Fayez Rashid Hilal, and today lives with their two sons Bader and Bashar in Amman, Jordan.[21] She is an atheist.[22]

She was the subject of a film entitled Leila Khaled, Hijacker,[23] directed by Palestinian filmmaker Lina Makboul, premiered in November 2005 at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.[24]

In 2011 Khaled went on a speaking tour in Sweden, including speeches at May Day demonstrations of the Communist Party and the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden, a public art gallery, Södertörn University College and a seminar arranged by the Left Party.[2]

Leila Khaled graffiti on the Israeli West Bank barrier near Bethlehem.

References

  1. 1 2 MacDonald, Eileen (1991). "Leila Khaled". Shoot the Women First. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-679-41596-3.
  2. 1 2 "Something rotten in Sweden - Israel Opinion, Ynetnews". Ynetnews.com. 2011-03-11. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  3. ↑ "Foreign Terrorist Organizations". State.gov. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  4. ↑ "About the listing process". Publicsafety.gc.ca. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  5. ↑ "Council Decision 2012/333/CFSP" (PDF). Eur-lex.europa.eu. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  6. ↑ http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.635856 "Notorious Palestinian Plane Hijacker to Promote BDS in South Africa"
  7. 1 2 Paula Schmitt,'Interview with Leila Khaled: 'BDS is effective, but it doesn't liberate land',' +972 magazine 17 May 2014.
  8. ↑ "Jordan Times". Jordan Times. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  9. 1 2 Archived August 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ Khaled, Leila (1973). My People Shall Live. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-17380-7.
  11. 1 2 ""I made the ring from a bullet and the pin of a hand grenade"". Archived from the original on 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2007-06-29., The Guardian, January 26, 2001
  12. ↑ Archived August 20, 2004, at the Wayback Machine.
  13. ↑ "I made the ring from a bullet and the pin of a hand grenade". The Guardian. London. 2001-01-26.
  14. ↑ Public Broadcasting Service, Hijacked website, "Flight crews and security". Retrieved 2014-03-11.
  15. ↑ UK National Archives,Government papers, "Hijack Story" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-01-22.
  16. ↑ "News". An Phoblacht. 2015-10-01. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  17. ↑
  18. ↑ "The activistocracy | Features | Governance". Infochangeindia.org. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  19. ↑ "Página inicial" (in Portuguese). Forumsocialmundial.org.br. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  20. ↑ "PNN | Palestine News Network". 2015-10-24. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  21. ↑ "Interview by Sana Abdallah". Archived from the original on 2006-09-03. Retrieved 2006-09-03., United Press International, July 21, 2003
  22. ↑ "Interview with Leila Khaled: 'BDS is effective, but it doesn't liberate land' | +972 Magazine". 972mag.com. Retrieved 2016-03-14.
  23. ↑ Murphy, Maureen Clare (2007-04-09). "Violence or nonviolence? Two documentaries reviewed". Electronic Intifada. Retrieved 2007-09-07.
  24. ↑ "Hijacker". Leila Khaled. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  25. ↑ "Leila Khaled Portrait Made of 3,500 Lipsticks | Oddity Central – Collecting Oddities". Oddity Central. 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  26. ↑ Archived July 16, 2004, at the Wayback Machine.
  27. ↑ "iTunes - Everything you need to be entertained.". Apple. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  28. ↑ Commentary track (07m09s) on original DVD release (2000) of Doctor Who's The Robots of Death
  29. ↑ Tony Mitchell. Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA. Books.google.com. p. 60. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
  30. ↑ "ライラのバラード（英訳詩朗読）／PANTA-響 - 旗旗". Bund.jp. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  31. ↑ "（明大）中東フォーラム2012―アラブ民衆蜂起とパレスチナ解放【ライラ・ハリドさん来日】 - 旗旗". Bund.jp. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  32. ↑

Sources

Further reading

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