Leila Chaled

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Leila Chaled (2009)

Leila Chaled , often spelled Leila Khaled , ( Arabic ليلى خالد Lailā Chālid , DMG Laylā Ḫālid ; * April 9, 1944 in Haifa in the then League of Nations mandate for Palestine ) is a leading member of the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and was one of the first female hijackers in history.

Life

Chaled was one of 13 children of a merchant family in Haifa. Her father had a small business in town, the large family owned a house. During the Palestine War in 1948, the family fled to Lebanon , where they were accommodated in a refugee camp near Tire .

Chaled has a Christian family background and, as a supporter of dialectical materialism according to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is herself an atheist , but does not publicly criticize religion according to her own statements.

At the age of 15 she was already politically active and joined a Lebanese cell of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM). In 1962/63 she studied at the American University of Beirut . She worked as a teacher in Kuwait and organized herself there with al-Fatah . She was not allowed to join their military wing. As a result of the Six Day War , in 1967 she joined the newly founded Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) by George Habasch , which later became the second largest faction in the PLO . She practiced armed struggle in military training camps in Jordan.

First involvement in an airplane hijacking in 1969

On August 29, 1969, she became known to the world for being involved in the hijacking of flight TWA  840. The Boeing 707 , which was en route from Rome to Tel Aviv , was diverted to Damascus . The Boeing was blown up in Damascus after everyone on board left it. The non-Israeli passengers were then released, the Syrian authorities detained the four women among the six Israeli passengers for one day, the two men until December, when the Israeli government exchanged them for Syrian and Egyptian prisoners of war .

Since then, Chaled has been considered a top terrorist in the western world and a heroine in the Arab world . A photograph made by Eddie Adams showed Chaled as a figure that identifies the Palestinians. The picture shows her with an AK-47 , the traditional keffiyeh and a ring decorated with a cartridge. After 1969, Chaled underwent several cosmetic operations on his nose and chin in order to be able to undertake further kidnapping operations despite her notoriety.

Second involvement in aircraft hijackings in Black September 1970

On September 6, 1970, during the Black September uprising of the Palestinians in Jordan, the PFLP attempted to hijack five planes at the same time. Leila Chaled's task was to bring flight El Al  219 from Amsterdam to New York City under their control , together with Nicaraguan Patrick Argüello . The attempt failed after angry passengers attacked Argüello with, among other things, a whiskey bottle and an Israeli security guard on board had an exchange of fire with Argüello. Argüello shot a steward down. The thrown hand grenade (Chaled had two of them with him) did not detonate despite the release. In addition, the pilot got the kidnappers "off their feet" by means of a controlled dive, making it possible for passengers and crew to arrest them.

Leila Chaleds received in Damascus after her release in 1970

Argüello and Chaled were overwhelmed, Argüello died of serious gunshot wounds on the way to the hospital. The plane landed in London and Chaled was taken to Ealing Police Station . Like some other PFLP prisoners in Germany and Switzerland (see attack in Kloten ), she was released on September 28 as part of a prisoner exchange and received in Syria as a “heroine” and “freedom fighter”.

Graffito on the wall in Bethlehem (Palestine), depicting Leila Khaled.

further activities

After she was out of the question for further kidnappings due to her great fame, she shifted her activities from armed struggle to political conflict in the 1970s. She has become a frequent participant in international conferences on feminism and the developing world . As a member of the Palestinian National Council , she attended the first meeting on Palestinian soil since 1966 in Gaza. This was also Chaled's first return to Palestine since her flight in 1948. The Israeli government had raised no objection to her crossing the Israeli military-controlled borders into Gaza. Later Chaled was among other things a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council . She is often present in the Arab and Palestinian media. When she was about to speak at a conference in Belfast in 2005, she was denied entry to the UK on two previous occasions, after which she videotaped attendees from neighboring Ireland. In 2013 she was a member of the Central Committee of the PFLP.

“Wherever there is colonialism, oppression and violence, resistance also grows. You are resisting. You are the voice of those who oppose colonialism. I greet you in the name of the fighting people of Palestine. "

- Leila Khaled at the Turkish HDP Congress, Ankara, March 11, 2018 :

“Only the struggle of the Palestinians and their resistance, in whatever form, will liberate Palestine. This includes things like disregarding the instructions of an occupation soldier, holding demonstrations and the armed struggle. "

- Khaled in South Africa 2015

She is married to a physiotherapist, has two sons and lives in Amman, Jordan.

Autobiography

  • Leila Khaled: My people should live. Autobiography of a revolutionary. (Edited by George Hajjar) Trikont-Verlag, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-920385-63-2 . (Several later editions with different publishers)

literature

  • Sarah Irving: Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Revolution. Pluto Press, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-7453-2952-9 .

filming

  • Documentary: Leila Khaled, Hijacker , Sweden 2005, director: Lina Makboul ( official website , English)

Web links

Commons : Leila Khaled  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Maria Cristina Verrier's plane hijacking to the Falkland Islands took place in 1966 and thus much earlier, compare Argentina: The Falkland Caper , Time , October 7, 1966.
  2. Harvey W. Kushner: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. SAGE Publications, 2002, p. 201 (English)
  3. Paula Schmitt: Interview with Leila Khaled: 'BDS is effective, but it doesn't liberate land'. In: +972 Magazine of May 17, 2014, accessed November 26, 2015
  4. Amir Oren: Anatomy of a Prisoner Exchange. In: Haaretz from October 20, 2008, accessed on June 6, 2016 (English)
  5. a b Katharine Viner: "I made the ring from a bullet and the pin of a hand grenade" , interview in the Guardian of January 26, 2001, accessed on March 12, 2017
  6. a b September 6th 2010 - 40 years ago: PFLP hijacked four passenger planes. WDR contribution. September 6, 2010, accessed September 9, 2019 .
  7. ^ A b c John O'Farrell: Guerrilla in our midst. In: Financial Times of September 17, 2005 (English)
  8. a b Hijack queen comes home to Palestine. In: The Independent of February 21, 1996, accessed June 6, 2016
  9. ^ Gaza - Palestinian National Council. In: AP Archive of April 23, 1996, accessed June 6, 2016
  10. Plane hijacker turned politician disapproves of today's 'terrorism'. In: The Irish Times, August 4, 2005, accessed June 6, 2016
  11. ^ Palestinian hero Leila Khaled opposes US machinations in Mid East , Liberation news, January 29, 2013
  12. Decolonise Palestine - Stop Apartheid! The BDS campaign and Khaled. Prop. Trans.
  13. Khaled on a BDS tour, 2015 Stop Apartheid . Prop. Trans.