[News] ‘October 7 proved the importance of the struggle to the world’: an interview with Palestinian icon

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/october-7-proved-the-importance-of-the-struggle-to-the-world-an-interview-with-palestinian-icon-leila-khaled/?ml_recipient=141605229241042503&ml_link=141605188386423840&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-12-24&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
‘October 7 proved the importance of the struggle to the world’: an
interview with Palestinian icon By Bayan Abu Ta'ema
<https://mondoweiss.net/author/bayan-abu-taema/> and Synne Furnes
Bjerkestrand <https://mondoweiss.net/author/synne-furnes-bjerkestrand/> -
December 23, 2024
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[image: leilakhaled1-1024x684.jpeg]
Leila Khaled sits for an interview with Mondoweiss in her apartment in
Amman, Jordan. (Photo: Bayan Abu Ta’ema)

Leila Khaled, 80 years old, has been fighting for the liberation of
Palestine since she was fourteen. She grew up as a refugee in Lebanon and
joined the resistance at a young age. She is a well-known freedom fighter
in the Palestinian movement, especially known for being the first woman to
hijack a plane in 1969. Khaled did most of her resistance work with the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), moving between
countries to pursue her cause, until she settled in Jordan after getting
married in 1992. When *Mondoweiss* met her in Amman, she had just returned
from Venezuela, where she attended a conference on Palestine – her work for
liberation is still ongoing.

*Mondoweiss: You joined the Arab Nationalist Movement, which the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) later derived from, when you
were 14 years old. Why did you decide to join them? *

The feeling of deprivation and injustice makes you take a stance: either
you accept it or you reject it. I rejected it. Since I was young, we were
deprived of things that were once available to us in Palestine. When we
arrived in Lebanon, we saw people who had been displaced, walking from
Palestine to Lebanon, each one carrying their children or belongings, and
everyone was crying, men, women, and my mother was crying too, and so were
we. We arrived at my uncle’s house and around it, there were orange trees.
We wanted to eat them, but my mother said no: “This is not yours. what is
yours, is in Haifa, in Palestine. We do not have anything here.”

This made me dislike oranges for years. It was not ours, all we had was in
Palestine. I did not eat an orange until 1970. The situation was so
depressing, and people in Lebanon were feeling with us, they opened their
homes for us. We, the children, were always asking why we were not in
Palestine. Once you grow up, you start understanding more. What we went
through would have affected any human being. If we understand a little bit,
we will ask questions, and they have answers. These were all ways for me to
start thinking about how we could go back home. You will start asking
yourself and those around you “What can we do?”  I was 14 years old when I
decided to join PFLP, then called the Arab National Movement (ANM). My
brothers joined before me, and I followed after them.

*The past year, thousands of people all over the world have taken to the
streets to protest the occupation of Palestine and the ongoing
American-Israeli genocide. As someone who has dedicated their life to the
Palestinian cause, what do you think about the growth of the Palestine
movement over the past year? *

I have been realizing that the world has started to wake up. The
Palestinian struggle has lasted for more than 75 years and now people are
starting to learn about it. We have already gone through phases of
revolution and then the Intifada, which raised global awareness about our
cause. Yet, Israel still refuses to commit to anything and America protects
them with the VETO. Biden recently stated that you don’t have to be Jewish
to be a Zionist and that he himself is a Zionist. He also said that “If
Israel didn’t exist, we would have to create Israel.” This clearly shows
his support for genocide. He has repeatedly emphasized that the U.S. will
continue to support Israel with all forms of assistance. In fact, they’ve
provided Israel with the most advanced weapons to test on Gaza. For
instance, the phenomenon of bodies vaporizing under bombardment, where else
has this happened before? They are using the most horrific and brutal
weapons in history to wipe out the Palestinian people. What is happening
now is genocide, and people have been demonstrating against it and
apartheid.
[image: Leila Khaled in her apartment in Amman, Jordan. (Photo: Bayan Abu
Ta’ema)]Leila Khaled in her apartment in Amman, Jordan. (Photo: Bayan Abu
Ta’ema)

This generation has become more aware of the Palestinian situation and the
cause. This is partly because of social media. I mean that the new
generation must search for the facts about the struggle. The thousands of
people who have gone out on the streets and the student movements are proof
that they have understood the cause. It is also proof that they stopped
believing the biggest lie: that Palestine was a land without people and
that Palestinians are a people without a land. The reality is that it is
our duty to work on building information networks. We have to fight with
the world to inform them about the struggle. Western media have their
politics, which is built upon their own opinion, that is clear. They are
not with the people’s movement. This year, I went to Malaysia, Nicaragua,
and Venezuela for conferences on Palestine.

*What are your thoughts on October 7th and the historical background for
the Al Aqsa Flood? *

The 7th of October was a must, it had to happen because the history of the
struggle is long between us and the enemy. Until when were we supposed to
stay like this, living under occupation? This is a big question. Until
when? This was not a military operation, it was a historical operation.  It
showed you our struggle, our victims, the occupation, and all of the
policies that the occupation is putting upon our people, whether it is in
the West Bank, in Gaza, or even outside (of Palestine). It showed you that
we had to make a drastic change.

The importance of the (Palestinian) struggle was proved to the world. The
occupation has lasted for  over 75 years, why did people start
demonstrating now? People far away, even in Australia and Iceland, have
been demonstrating, but it is not a question of distance: it is about how
people became aware of the truth of the struggle. And the truth is in the
facts. We are now in the age of social media. People see the images, and
even if Israel’s supporters shadowban posts, they cannot silence the
movement on the streets. People started demonstrating, and the student
movement has been astonishing.

The operation happened, and the world understood why. America and Israel
tried to twist the truth and say that they are terrorists, but who is the
real terrorist? Until now, America has prevented any conference to define
terrorism. They (America and Israel) don’t want to determine what terrorism
is, because they are the terrorists themselves. What is the occupier? The
one who occupies is a terrorist.

Massacres have been committed all around the world, but something like
what’s happening in Gaza? No, it hasn’t happened. Israel has been exposed
as a racist, occupying state, and this has led people to raise slogans
against apartheid and racism. These terms have now become widely used in
the streets.

The Western countries work against each other but consider the Zionist
movement as a reference point. This means that Israel is heavily supported
because it was founded by the Zionist movement.. All these issues are
interconnected, and now we are seeing how Israel is a state that doesn’t
abide by international or humanitarian laws. And yet it is protected by the
West, which consists of former colonizers in our region, meaning they are
still unable to admit that this entity must be isolated.

*In 1969, you participated in a flight hijacking with PFLP. Can you tell us
more about why you decided to take part in it? *

This was not my idea, I was the one who carried out the task at that time.
I was studying in Kuwait and went back to Lebanon in 1968 for a trip to see
Dr. Wadie Haddad,  the leader of PFLP. I told him I wanted to go to Jordan
to train, but he said no. I told him I had been waiting for the revolution
to start so that I could participate. I wanted to carry a weapon, resist,
fight, and liberate Palestine. That was my dream.
[image: Leila Khaled's image reflects in a photo of herself taken after
returning to Jordan following the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969.
(Photo: Bayan Abu Ta’ema)]Leila Khaled’s image reflects in an iconic photo
of herself taken after returning to Jordan following the hijacking of TWA
Flight 840 in 1969. (Photo: Bayan Abu Ta’ema)

My mother did not want me to go, but my father told her “When we fled
Palestine, the women left first. When we want to go back, the women will
also be the first.” So I took my siblings and went to the military training
camps.

When PFLP was established, two slogans were set forth. The first one was
that women and men are together in the fight for liberation, which means
that women must be part of the military training camps. The second one is
“Behind the enemy everywhere.” Why? Because the PFLP believes that the
enemy is not just Israel but the Zionist movement, which has worked and
continues to work to seize this land and drive us out of it. The PFLP
believes in targeting the enemy’s interests wherever they are in the world,
as this is a fundamental part of the main battle that includes carrying
arms against the enemy in Palestine.

In 1969, Wadie Haddad asked me if I was ready to die, and I said yes. He
then asked if I was ready for imprisonment, to which I said that we entered
this path knowing the risks and there are already many of our Palestinian
comrades in prisons due to military operations. I understood what it meant
to be imprisoned by the occupation.

Then he went on to ask me if I was ready to hijack a plane. I was
surprised, I had not heard about hijacking before, and I was 24 years old.
So I took some time to consider it, thinking about why we were going to do
it. The goal was to release all the Palestinian prisoners that were
imprisoned by Israel. I was so happy I was going to do something for
Palestine. We took the plane from Rome, it came from America. It was
supposed to go to Athens, then Tel Aviv. But as Arabs, we could not go to
Tel Aviv, so we ordered tickets to Athens.

We knew that the plane was American and that it carried weapons that were
going to Israel. We changed the plane’s code to “The Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, Palestine is Free and Arab,” and anyone who wanted
to communicate with us had to use this code.  I told the captain to give us
a tour for us to see Palestine. It was the first time I saw Palestine after
we fled. I was thinking of my father, who had passed away. The pilot told
me that I had to put my arm on my shoulder. He was scared because I was
holding an open bomb in my hand. I told him “do not be scared, I have
trained for this.”

I gave him a new map, leading us to Damascus, and we went there. We blew up
the cockpit when the passengers had left – we wanted to ruin the plane. We
were happy because when the police arrived, they thought we were some of
the passengers. I told the police: “Look at the Israelis, they fled.” We
were in Syria for one and a half months, first with the secret police, but
then they let us go. They gave us a house to stay in and took us out at
night to show us Damascus and they took us to restaurants.

*What do you see as the way forward to reach a liberated Palestine? *

We agree – as the Palestinian resistance, not just Hamas but all fighters
who carry weapons –  that we do not have options or the luxury of choice.
We have one path, and it leads to Palestine: armed resistance. Of course,
politics, popular peoples movements, and diplomatic work helps. But the
most important is the weapons, and the core is to hit the enemy directly on
the land it occupies. It is our right as a people who are living under an
occupation to resist with arms. This is written in international law. There
is always hope for liberation. If there were no hope, we wouldn’t have
fought at all.

My message to the world is that we Palestinians are part of this world, and
we are being oppressed. This war that is happening is a genocidal
onslaught, until when will it last? 2.5 million people are living in the
Gaza Strip, do they want to kill them all?

The international court says that it is the court of justice, when will it
decide that this is really a genocide? How many Palestinians have to be
killed before they reach a decision?

Every country, alongside with the United Nations, must push for their
governments to cut ties with Israel. Israel is an apartheid state.
Everyone, not just the people but also the states, must boycott the
occupation.The new generation is playing a very important role in the fight
for liberation, and I want to tell you to not stop – continue going down
this road.
------------------------------

*Bayan Abu Ta’ema*
Bayan Abu Ta’ema is an independent Palestinian storyteller and filmmaker
based in Jordan. She produces audible and visual journalism and documentary
films, often related to human rights.

*Synne Furnes Bjerkestrand*
Synne Furnes Bjerkestrand is an independent journalist based in Amman,
Jordan. She has written for Norwegian media, Al Jazeera, and Middle East
Eye, and is currently finishing her masters degree in journalism with a
focus on the framing of the genocide in Gaza in western media.
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