The *FREE ARAB VOICE*
February 2, 1999

In this issue of the Free Arab Voice we interview Laila Khaled.

Laila Khaled is a Palestinian Arab woman, an activist, fighter, and a
leader that has become now a familiar part of the Palestinian psyche.
She turned almost overnight from another refugee in Lebanon into an
unfurled Palestinian flag.  Unlike others who folded their flags though,
she remains as true to the faith today as when she was fifteen, only
smarter.  Understanding what she has to say is tantamount to
understanding what many Palestinians have to say. We will not rain on
her parade.  She will introduce herself by herself.

[This interview was conducted for the Free Arab Voice (FAV) by Ibrahim
Alloush ].

Introduction:

FAV: Welcome Laila Khaled.  Would you like in the beginning to introduce
us briefly to yourself: your position in the PFLP (Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine), the Palestinian Women's Union, and the
Palestinian revolution?

Laila: I'm a Palestinian woman of Lebanese origin, my belonging is Arab,
and hence my belonging is Palestinian. I joined the Arab Nationalist
Movement early, early with respect to me, cause I was barely 15 years
old then.  After that [when the Movement dissolved itself], I moved to
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine since its inception in
1967, and continue to be with them until today. I was a member of the
Union of Palestinian students, in the Administrative Committee, when I
was still a student in the American University of Beirut in 1963. In
1974, I became a member in the General Secretariat of the Palestinian
women's Union.  Also I've been a delegate in the Palestinian National
Council [parliament] since 1979.

FAV: What's your official position in the PFLP?

Laila: I'm a member in the Leadership Council of the PFLP.

"Who Are the Palestinians?":

FAV: We're not going to dwell long on that military operation you 
partook in, and which drew fame and glory. We have surpassed that stage 
in a sense.  We're in a different stage now, perhaps even at your own 
personal level.  Would you give us a quick glimpse though about that 
operation so our younger readers may get an idea about what happened 
then? When exactly, and what was your role in it?

Laila: [It was] one of the operations undertaken by the PFLP to hijack 
airplanes.  I was the first woman to participate in one, but the PFLP 
had done a few before.  One of those was the hijacking of an El Al 
flight from Rome to Algeria.  The PFLP took this path under the motto of 
"Going after the Enemy Everywhere", as one of the tactics or phases of 
the armed struggle.  The main goal behind these operations was to pose a 
big question to the world: who are the Palestinians?  At the time 
Palestinians were being treated merely as refugees who may need 
humanitarian aid.  So we got showered with tents, UNRWA programs, and so 
forth!  

The other goal behind these operations was to release our political 
prisoners from "Israeli" jails.  From 1968 until 1970, the PFLP 
performed operations abroad to achieve those two goals.  But having 
posed the question of who are the Palestinians, the answer was not in 
the final analysis to be answered by the operations themselves but by 
the Palestinian revolution.  There was now a big commotion.  People all 
over the world were asking who those were who were hijacking airplanes 
and what they wanted.  Regarding the second objective of releasing 
prisoners, we succeeded in that respect partially.  Had we had a 
liberated base from whence we could have held planes and passengers, and 
from whence we could have exchanged and negotiated, we could have 
succeeded much more.  The Arab regimes had a clear position of not 
supporting us, and of compromising us as needed to white wash any 
affiliation with us. 

I participated in two of these operations.  One was the hijacking a TWA 
that Isaac Rabin was scheduled to be on.  At the time he was the 
"Israeli" Ambassador in the U.S.  That flight was supposed to go through 
Rome.  We boarded the plane there, and re-directed the plane to 
Damascus, Syria. Unfortunately however, Rabin was not on board!

FAV: When was this?

Laila: This was in August 1969.

FAV: What happened after you came to Damascus?  

Laila: When we came to Damascus, the airport we landed in was still not 
in use so we inaugurated it.  We blew up the cockpit.  

FAV: None of the passengers were hurt though!

Laila: No, no, not at all!  That was made very clear throughout. We had 
strict directives not to hurt any passengers or members of the crew at 
all.  Only in the case of clear self-defense, we were told, will you 
repel anyone who attacks you. 

FAV: So you released the passengers upon arrival to Damascus?

Laila: Immediately.  We told them to get off calmly, and showed them how 
to do it safely.  Then we handed ourselves over to the authorities.  We 
said we admit having done this, and would like to tell you why we did 
what we did.

FAV: The second operation you took part in?

Laila: The second one was an El Al plane.  Now that's a different story 
because it's an El Al!  An "Israeli" thing per se!  That flight was 
carrying Ahron Yarev, the head of "Israeli" Military Intelligence at the 
time.  We boarded that flight in Amesterdam.  It was supposed to be 
headed to New York, but we were going to turn it back east.  We had just 
inaugurated an airport near Amman, Jordan, that became known as the 
Airport of the Revolution where. We had held three planes there already, 
and we were going to bring our El Al plane there too.  But the pilot 
took us to London instead, and our comrade from Nicaragua, Patrick 
Aurguillo, was killed there.  

FAV: What went wrong?

Laila: What went wrong was that we were to be four doing this, but only 
two of us, Patrick and me, managed to get on board.  Because Yarev had 
bodyguards too we simply got outnumbered and outgunned.  The route the 
plane took was not the one we thought they would.  Landing in London was 
totally unexpected.  We bet that they won't come near us.  I was in 
charge of the operation and had two hand grenades.  I didn't think they 
would ever dare to come near me, but it seems that "Israelis" think 
lightly of dying as well.  They attacked the two of us, and managed to 
kill Patrick savagely.  I wasn't shot, but tackled and beaten.  Media 
reports later indicated that the body of the plane was riddled with 
eighty bullet holes.  Patrick had one handgun and I had two grenades, so 
guess who was doing most of the shooting?

FAV: Then?

Laila: The Brits took me.  The very following day however a Palestinian 
guy from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, hijacked a BOAC plane to Beirut 
because he couldn't handle the thought of me getting arrested.  He 
requested to talk to the PFLP when he got to Beirut International 
Airport, and asked them where he should go with the plane.  The pilot 
didn't know how to get to the Airport of the Revolution because it 
wasn't in the official charts.  So, he was given directions.  Then I was 
released in exchange, along with a couple of other comrades, after 28 
days in custody.  All this also raised the political question worldwide 
of who we were and what we sought. 

A Critical Evaluation:

FAV: How do you respond to those who say that this particular type of 
operations did not help out very much, but had in fact hurt the 
Palestinian cause?  Sure we got the attention of the world, but it was 
perhaps negative attention, the kind that's not very good for us?

Laila: There's an intrinsic difference between armed struggle as one of 
the main strategies to overcome the enemy, and these transient tactics 
which we employed only during a very brief period.  On the internal 
Palestinian level, other groups condemned our earlier tactics only to 
end up adopting them after we abandoned them totally in 1970, as Fatah 
did with the "Black September" organization!  So these were short-run 
tactical measures that can and should easily be given up if needed.  
Anyway, hijacking planes was not the only type of overseas operations we 
engaged in.  In 1972 for example, the PFLP hit the oil tanker Coral Sea 
which was clandestinely carrying Arab oil & gas (butane), from one of 
the Gulf states, to "Israel".  It took about a year of careful 
surveillance and planning to ascertain the route and method by which 
Arab oil went to "Israel".  But nobody likes to talk about this.  

FAV: Where did this happen?

Laila: The Red Sea.  Let me also add here that this operation cost 
"Israel" a great deal in terms of maintaining tight security.  From that 
point on, every tanker that went out to sea had to have military escort, 
by planes sometimes.  Protecting their energy supplies became a real 
pain. 

FAV: So do you call now for resuming this type of operations?

Laila: Now circumstances are different.  Every act has to serve a 
political end.  Hijacking airplanes is NOT in our best interest today.  
Anyway, we in the PFLP totally quit that after the Central Committee 
took a resolution to that effect in 1970.  In this regard I would like 
to mention, with great admiration and respect, the contributions of the 
martyr Wadi3 Haddad, who is also one of the founders of the Arab 
Nationalist Movement.  I owe this man most for having taught me how to 
love Palestine. 

FAV: But you continue to be today for the continuation of the armed 
struggle to liberate Palestine?

Laila: There is a simple and clear formula that I follow which doesn't 
require much theorizing. Since there is still today an enemy that raped 
and cast us out of our land, there is no language to communicate with 
him but that which he understands best.  He talks the language of 
terror, so we have a legitimate right to resist.  History, reality, and 
the whole world concede the people's right to resist occupation.  That's 
all there's to it.

The Calculus of War and Peace:  

FAV:  Some say Arafat obtained more for the Palestinian people, with his 
readiness to condemn and cooperate against Palestinian "terrorism", than 
what we have obtained from decades of operations which cost us tens of 
thousands of martyrs, injured, prisoners, not to mention international 
public opinion.  How would you respond to that?

Laila: Arafat lost and made us lose with him.

FAV: How come?  Some say he obtained a small piece that could later 
become the nucleus of a Palestinian state?  Can't this become a foothold 
from whence we may liberate the rest?  Didn't he bring back about forty 
thousand Palestinians with him from Tunisia? 

Laila: Arafat as the epitome of a stratum of leaders of the Palestinian 
movement that embraces the same way of thinking, has chosen to favor its 
personal interests over those of the people.  Consequently they deemed 
their own return to Palestine, under humiliating conditions, synonymous 
with the "right of return".  We have in Palestine today about three 
million Palestinians.  These have conducted one of the greatest 
uprisings in the world.  Their problem was never the right of return for 
Arafat and a small group with him.  Our problem has always been that we 
are a people that have had its land occupied and that was forcibly 
evicted from that land.  The Zionists built their state on our land.  
Our problem can be summarized in two points: 1) sovereignty over the 
land, 2) the return of refugees.  This is the essence of the Palestinian 
problem.  Now let's see what Arafat did.  Arafat got the legitimacy to 
speak for Palestinians from the blood of our martyrs, and from our 
suffering.  He got legitimacy because he adopted initially the strategy 
of armed struggle.  Then he stopped halfway.  When this stratum got some 
perks and privileges, they balked on the notion of resistance.  Our 
leadership was spoiled into submission, among other things.  They liked 
hotels, travel, official receptions at their honor and what have you too 
much.  But at the same time they were selling their own selves out.  
Those selling themselves out can't be said to be "obtaining" anything 
for their people, can they now?  It's true that "Israel" re-deployed its 
forces in this alleged solution.  But even before that was done, Arafat 
had to sign on to the enemy's right to exist on our land.  That is a 
negation of the all the precepts of Palestinian struggle.

The PFLP's Stand on the Existence of "Israel":

FAV: But some claim that the PFLP has shifted, and is no longer totally 
opposed to the principle of "Israel's" right to exist if that meant a 
sovereign Palestinian mini-state on the side.  Is that true?

Laila: Let's judge the PFLP on the basis of its documents, and I'm part 
of the PFLP.  When we say that we agreed to the program of Palestinian 
national consensus: 1) the right of return, 2) self-determination, and 
3) the Palestinian state.  That means a Palestinian state on the land 
occupied in 1967, not Haifa.  But here are our documents, and our 
strategy, and here's the Palestinian National Charter that Arafat 
compromised.  They all talk of liberating Palestine from the Jordan 
River to the Mediterranean Sea.  
FAV: So this is what the PFLP remains formally committed to today? 

Laila: Of course.  We haven't changed.  We believe in liberation in 
stages, but we believe in our historical right to all of Palestine as 
well.

Laila Khaled Prevented from Flying in December to the Palestinian 
Conference in Damascus:

FAV: With respect to the Palestinian National Charter, there were 
reports that you were on a plane headed from Amman to Damascus earlier 
in December 1998, when you were asked to get off the plane right before 
take-off by Jordanian authorities.  What happened there?  Did they get 
nightmares from the mere thought of Laila Khaled on a plane? Was it a 
matter of flashbacks from the sixties or is it more complicated than 
that?  

Laila:  I still travel by airplane by the way  : ) : ) I don't frighten 
anyone there.  I was actually headed for Beirut, not Damascus, to 
participate in the Second Arab meeting for the post-Peking Women's 
conference.  No body told me why I was not allowed to fly that day, but 
I think they expected me to be going to the Palestinian opposition 
meeting in Damascus that convened on the 12th of December to re-endorse 
the Palestinian National Charter.  But in fact the real reason is Wye 
River, and the security deals that took place behind the scenes between 
the security apparatuses in Jordan and "Israel".  Laila Khaled is a 
Palestinian activist, and for her to travel and express her views here 
and there just doesn't fly very well with the authorities.  So they 
harass me as a member in the Palestinian opposition, not as an 
individual.  But eventually, I traveled again later on, and nobody 
stopped me 

FAV: So what if they thought you were going to participate in the 
opposition conference in Damascus?  What's their beef?

Laila: I wasn't the only one prevented from going to Damascus last 
December.  All the delegates headed to that opposition Conference from 
Jordan were intercepted and turned back.  Specifically, 53 delegates 
were turned back.  I left several days before the conference date 
because I was going to attend another in Beirut, then go to the 
conference in Damascus.  

FAV: But why?  What's the point of preventing you and those people from 
attending the conference in Damascus?  

Laila:  The point as expressed rather comically by the Jordanian 
Minister of the Interior, Nayef al Qadi, was that those 53 delegates 
were going to Syria to say stuff that was "contrary to the security of 
Jordan".  The response to that is straight forward: the Palestinian 
opposition was simply going there to discuss its position and options 
after Arafat went ahead with the annulment of the Palestinian National 
Charter.  That's all.  But let's not forget I live in a state that has 
signed an agreement with "Israel" in Wadi Arabah.  This agreement, or 
maybe one of its secret appendices, entailed that the opposition be 
oppressed, as long as that is done with all the "democratic means" 
available to the system!

[We will later go back and discuss in depth with Laila Khaled's the 
Peking women's conference and her position on the question of women's 
liberation.  There's about 30 minutes of tape here that FAV will 
reproduce separately due to the extreme importance and the independent 
nature of that subject- FAV].

Future Strategies for Palestinian Action: 

FAV: The position you occupy now Laila Khaled in the Palestinian memory 
and the Palestinian conscience forces us to pose all the hardest 
questions to you.  The Palestinian activism has reached a predicament at 
this point as is evident.  Can we say that the old forms of struggle 
have fallen?  Is there a need for new forms to replace them?  If so, 
what are some of the features of these new forms?  In short what is a 
good strategy for Palestinian action for the coming period? What is to 
be done? Whence do we begin? 

Laila: You posed the question of whence do we begin, so let me say here 
that we're not starting out from zero. Every time a new leadership 
arrives at the scene, it doesn't study the phase preceding it, and 
assumes that history began with it.  Since the Balfour Declaration in 
1917, we've had a series of uprisings and leaders in Palestine, 
culminating in a major armed revolt under the leadership of the Qassam 
in 1936. Then there was Abdul-Qader al Husseini in 1948, then el Hajj 
Amin, and in the sixties the present PLO leadership emerged. We need to 
study therefore our history and draw hard lessons as much as we need to 
thoroughly evaluate the previous phase of the Palestinian struggle. 

We may have entered a new phase though, characterized by a political 
settlement in favor of the enemy.  The cornerstones of Palestinian 
activism have been upturned.  The precept that the Zionist enemy is 
occupying our land has been clouded with false rhetoric about peace.  
The notion of armed struggle has been distorted as well by those who 
signed shameful agreements, like Arafat and his group.  We have to study 
thus the previous phase in a comprehensive and careful manner.  We have 
to examine where we hit and where we missed.  The great achievement the 
Palestinian people has perhaps been the Palestinian national identity.  
We learned how to resist, but the strategies of action now will have to 
be different from the ones we adopted before.  The notion of armed 
struggle itself though remains necessarily constant because this enemy 
has not changed its nature.  This enemy does not seek peace.  It is 
still racist, expansionist, and violent.  
FAV: What is it that should change then?

Laila:  Only the mechanisms have to change, not the objectives.  The 
strategy of armed struggle has to carry on from one generation to the 
next.  It has to remain a historical struggle on all fronts.  The 
military front is not currently open, while the usual measures like 
demolishing homes, confiscating land, arresting activists, air raiding 
south Lebanon, and killing civilians continue. We still have Palestinian 
and Lebanese funerals daily.  This means the enemy does not understand 
any other language.  

FAV: This is regarding the objectives of the Palestinian action.  How do 
we get there?

Laila: The objectives of the PLO have not been achieved, including the 
right of return, self-determination, and the Palestinian state.  Some 
say we still have to uphold those betrayed objectives, and I'm one of 
those.  The problem now is that this [Palestinian] opposition, which is 
made up of Islamic, nationalist, and leftist components IS NOT UNITED IN 
ONE PROGRAM OF ACTION.  We don't have to unite them ideologically.   
They do have to find a way however to deal jointly with the two most 
important current issues of Palestinian struggle: 

First, how to confront and escalate the fight against the occupation, 
and second how to tackle the contradiction with the limited self-rule 
authority of Arafat whose main task is to provide security for the 
occupation, and to oppress Palestinians.  We can't adopt the same 
approach in dealing with the two.  I don't think twice about the 
legitimacy of resisting the occupation by all means necessary.

FAV: How do you respond to people like Edward Said and Azmi Bshara who 
insinuate sometimes that we need new approaches to Palestinian activism, 
for example by opening up Palestinian organizations to "Israelis" who 
recognize "Israel's" right to exist, yet support Palestinian rights!

Laila: We have to look at the tasks of every concentration of 
Palestinians in the light of its own circumstances.  We have a goal that 
unites us all, which is to liberate Palestine.  But there's about a 
million Palestinians right now living in the land occupied in 1948.  
Those will have tasks that are different from the ones to be addressed 
by the Palestinians of Lebanon.  In the former, the Palestinian struggle 
focuses on removing the discrimination they suffer under "Israel".  But 
in Rou7ah and Um Es-sa7ali when "Israelis" tried to confiscate more land 
and to demolish homes a while back, the reaction of the Palestinians of 
1948 made the Shin Bet report to the "Israeli" government that after 
fifty years of "Israeli" rule, nationalist feelings among the Arabs of 
"Israel", as they call them, are on the rise.  It's true there are a 
couple there that call themselves "Israelis", but the Palestinians of 
1948 have overall preserved their Palestinian Arab national identity.  
Within the framework of the overall objective,  these people have the 
local objective of achieving equality before the law in "Israel"…

FAV: But we can't generalize the tasks of the Palestinians of 1948 to 
other Palestinians?

Laila: Yes, that part of our people will have different local objectives 
because it has different local circumstances.  We are a dispersed people 
you know.  Those in the West Bank and Gaza will have different tasks as 
well.

FAV: So the idea of including "Israelis" in our struggle applies only to 
the Palestinians of 1948, right?

Laila: No, no, no! Neither including nor excluding, no! I'm talking 
about something totally different.  I'm talking about a relevant 
Palestinian program for action.  I said there are general Palestinian 
objectives for all Palestinians, and then there are particular 
Palestinian objectives specific to the local circumstances for each 
concentration of Palestinians.  For example, what is right now the main 
concern of a Palestinian in Lebanon who is not allowed to work?  S/He 
wants to make a living.  But even s/he is trying to observe the general 
objective of preserving his Palestinian national identity.  He remains 
steadfast in the refugee camp as a Palestinian under very harsh 
conditions.  His tasks however will have to be different from those of a 
Palestinian in Gaza, who has to deal with persecution by Arafat's PNA, 
and the Zionist occupation.  Local strategies have to be decided 
locally, not imposed from without.  There has to be coordination though 
between the local parts so each complements the other.  

FAV:  But where do the "Israelis" who allegedly support our rights fit 
into all this?  Some say that our main task on the general level now 
should be to intensify our efforts amongst Americans and "Israelis".  
How do you respond to that?

Laila: Look, there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in North 
America.  The main task of that group is to publicize the Palestinian 
cause and win support.  They also have the additional task of not 
forgetting, and letting their kids forget who they are and where they 
came from.  They should think about coming back in the long-run.  It's 
high-time we learned from our enemies, isn't it?  But let's also not 
forget here that this is part of the overall struggle.  The children of 
the West and Gaza didn't peddle theories about winning over the West in 
the uprising.  They peddled stones.  And they won the support of the 
world nevertheless.  The essential thing is to not forget that the 
things that created the conflict with Zionists are still there.  They're 
not gone.  The land is still occupied and the people are still 
dispersed.  That's why we revolted.  These agreements are like some ash 
over the coals.  Pour a little gasoline and we revolt again.  The 
gasoline is how to make our local tasks complement each other.  The axis 
of the combined work should be to hit the enemy on the head through and 
through.  They only withdrew from south Lebanon because they were 
shipping back too many coffins.  So coffins is what they understand.  
And we should make no apologies here because our own graveyards are 
full.  Before preachers try to teach you about the humanity of our 
enemy, teach them about how we have been dehumanized.  They said: "The 
Palestinians don't exist"!  We have been subjugated to a process of 
extinction here.  Now they're even talking about making genes-smart 
bombs that kill only Arabs.  These people are not about coexistence.  
They still have their kids sing in Kindergarden: this bank of the Jordan 
River is ours, and the other one too!  Why are you asking us to change?

FAV: ..and the "Israelis" that support our struggle!

Laila: This is something that concerns the Palestinians of 1948. It is
not a task on the national level, except insofar as it contributes to
flaming differences within "Israeli" society, and weakens the
occupation.  Full stop.  But I don't tell our Palestinian masses there 
to go to the booth to vote for Labor or Meretz.  These still say our 
land is theirs.  I CHALLENGE ANY OF THE PARTIES THAT CLAIM TO SUPPORT 
PALESTINIAN RIGHTS IN 'ISRAEL' TO SAY THAT JERUSALEM IS OURS.  None of 
them do.  So what the heck?  We don't need more empty slogans from 
"Israelis" who claim to be supporting us.  The United Nations resolution 
that recognized "Israel" tied that recognition to the return of 
refugees.  But that was not observed because in this jungle the strong 
imposes its code.  Let those "Israelis" who say they support us call for 
our return.  Look, if you want to note with appreciation a large 
demonstration by "Peace Now", fine.  But don't fantasize.

FAV: Are you willing to share Jerusalem?

Laila: No way and never. I want to go back to Haifa where I was born.
What are you talking about?

[To be continued]

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