Blog 13 – A Palestinian Heroine
02.12.2023
As a young activist, I lived in the tumultuous times of the 1960s and 1970s. We had contemporary heroes and heroines, dead and alive, of incredible daring and fame. Amongst the musicians were Jimi Hendrix, who could make an electric guitar sound like bombs dropping on a Vietnam village and, this way, help stop the Vietnam war, and Janis Joplin, who could un-wrap the vacuous nature of “the capitalist dream” via a song and help a generation break out of its nightmare. Both musicians died in the year 1970 of what used to be called “burn-out” – it meant they gave too much of themselves. They did.
Amongst the political giants who had their photos on our walls, pinned next to Jimi and Janis, were hero of the Cuban revolution Che Guevara, assassinated by the CIA even as he still struggled in Bolivia, in 1967, and then Steve Biko assassinated by the South African police a decade later in 1977. I met Steve Biko, when we were both delegates for our respective universities at the last non-racial conference of the National union of South African Students during Apartheid in the late 1960s. So, it was personal, too.
But it is a third heroine that made me think about all these other heroes of that time, as I sat down to write the blog today. She was famous for actions she and others planned and took at the time in-between the assassinations of Che Guevara and of Steve Biko.
She is called – yes she is still alive – Leila Khaled.
She is Palestinian.
So totally at her wits end at the refusal of the world to recognize the plight of the Palestinian people, she, who was in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in 1969 hijacked TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv, making it land in Damascus. No-one was killed or even injured. But the Palestinian struggle was suddenly brought to the minds of everyone in the whole world. Suddenly the hidden suffering of Palestinians was centre stage. It saw the light of day. It was seen by the eyes of the world’s ordinary people. And the young woman Leila Khaled became the reluctant and beautiful “face of the Palestinian struggle”. Her action had the same effect, in one sense, as when Hamas pierced through the notoriously impenetrable Israeli Apartheid Wall in 29 places on 7 October and succeeded in giving a knock-out blow to the entire network of all eleven Israeli military bases that pen the two million people of Gaza in, during its 17-year state of siege. Palestinians had been constantly, but somehow apparently invisibly, imprisoned, killed, forcibly removed from the land and denied any democratic rights anywhere on the planet, and now, after both those acts – acts separated by 54 years – all this was made visible. The invisible became visible.
The hijacking in 1969 also gave the same sort of sudden dent to the Israeli State’s impunity in its on-going, hidden-in-plain-sight smothering of the people of Palestine. A collective punishment that has been perpetrated by the Israeli State since 1948.
And the hi-jackers, at that time, suffered the same vilification that Hamas is suffering in the Press today. The word “hi-jackers” had the same ring then that “terrorists” has today. And yet the vilification by those in power could not prevent the flowering of a reputation for integrity of Leila Khaled, and of her colleagues in the struggle then.
All this to say that Leila Khaled immediately became the icon of the Palestinian struggle. She became an icon of the women’s struggle and of the anti-imperialist struggle and of the anti-capitalist struggle. There were photos of her everywhere. Not that she liked being an icon.
And the Israeli hit-squads did not manage to arrest her or kill her.
She and her colleagues then hijacked – more daring still – an Israeli plane, El Al Flight 219 in 1970. The pilot landed in London, and she was released later on a prisoner swap. She still lives in a Palestinian refugee camp. Yes, she is an activist until today. Modest and consistent. I shared a platform with her in 2004 at a Forum in Mumbai at the world anti-military bases movement’s assembly. She, like the totality of the people of Palestine, is an inspiration to all young people today.
Why do I share these stories? It is important that people like Leila Khaled are remembered for their contribution. The history books will remember her. It is important to know that those who turn, as a last resort, to the armed struggle, do so when all other avenues are closed. Nelson Mandela did. He, too, was branded a “terrorist” by the USA, which is the one that bears the branding iron.
When we support the Palestinian struggle, it means that, as we gather strength, we help, too, to open peaceful avenues of struggle. It is the fact that the Palestinian people are kept invisible, are not in the USA even allowed to be mentioned on many platforms, that becomes a cause of violence. The violent oppression that they suffer, if we contribute to keep it hidden, is the cause of a violent struggle.
If we, the people of the “rest of the world” could only just prevent the USA government from arming, bank-rolling and supporting the Israeli State, that alone would change the balance of forces and create space for the Palestinian people to struggle for democracy by ordinary peaceful means. But, things have got so bad now that we owe more than that to the people of Palestine. We owe to prevent Israel from oppressing them.
We note that in Mauritius, as well as SOMALP and LALIT, as well as the trade unions, and individual SOMALP members, there are intellectuals who publicly do their bit: There is Former President of the Republic Cassam Uteem, who constantly takes a stand. There are Jean-Claude Bibi, Assad Peeroo and Suhasini Mukan who have joined the brilliant move by barrister Gilles Devers to gather a thousand lawyers to act as an “army of barristers” to bring criminal prosecution against the Israeli leaders before the UN’s ICC. There are Jean-Marie Richard and his colleagues in Friends of Al-Aqsa Mauritius, who again and again find ways to act. There are Jean-Meé and Jennifer Desveaux, who take stands, as individuals. There is an academic Khalil Elahee who writes about Palestine. There are political voices like those of Rama Valayden, Vijay Makan and Milan Meetarbhan. The MMM has put up banners calling for a CEASEFIRE. The Labour Party has taken a stand in favour of a ceasefire -- internationally. On 19 October, Osman Mahomed, who is the Labour Party Director for International Relations wrote to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, even then, calling for an “immediate ceasefire”. And Nando Bodha of Linion Moris has called, in a letter, for the Prime Minister as Leader of the House to put a resolution to Parliament for a Ceasefire. The PMSD, itself, has taken stands in favour of the Palestinian people. The former Bishop Donat of the Anglican Church has taken a stand. And, the MSM Government has voted at the UN General Assembly in favour of a ceasefire.
But, this is not enough.
It is now time for the Mauritian Government to act more boldly.
It must suspend all diplomatic ties with Israel, as demanded in LALIT’s recent letter to the Prime Minister, Pravind Jugnauth. I quote: “we in LALIT who are also part of the broad common front called Solidarite Morisyin ar Lepep Palestinn call on you as Leader of the House to introduce an urgent resolution before the National Assembly so as to attempt to get a unanimous call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the lifting of the military siege, and the suspension of diplomatic ties with Israel until the end of its military occupation of Palestine and total de-colonization. Such a stand will give the State of Mauritius status as a country prepared to stand firm on the principles of international law.”
The demand is so modest: merely to respect international law. The very minimum that a Government can call for from Israel.
We have to chip away at the impunity that Israel has benefitted from, because its role in the Middle East has favoured the USA – not just its political hegemony in the world, but also its economic interests. For 100 years the USA depended upon oil from the Middle East. Right now there is the huge find of natural gas just off the Gaza coast that US and other companies are putting their hands upon.
And the Israeli bombing, meanwhile, continues. One huge “made in the USA” bunker-buster bomb can and did wipe out 200 Palestinians, a whole city block in a refugee camp, because the Israeli military purported to be targeting just one Hamas militant. It is simply outrageous. We cannot let a genocide like this continue. We must separate ourselves from it, by suspending all ties with Israel – but starting with diplomatic ties. We all need to find a way to do a bit. The future of humanity is real at a moment when we have to engage, to commit ourselves, to a life-long struggle. Leila Khaled has kept on doing the grassroots work of an activist in her neighbourhood in a refugee camp. She shows us revolutionary patience. By serendipity, there is an interview with Leila Khaled in The New Internationalist of 25 July this year. You can read it on line.
Lindsey Collen
for LALIT
