‘I made the ring from a bullet and the pin of a hand grenade
When the Palestinian liberation fighter Leila Khaled hijacked her first plane in 1969, it became an international attraction for armed struggle. Then she underwent cosmetic surgery so she could do it again. Thirty years later, she spoke to Katharine Viner that a woman was at war.
In a way, the whole story is in the ring. Leila Khaled's iconic image, which makes her a symbol of Palestinian resistance and female strength, is unique in many ways: a weapon held by weak hands, shiny hair wrapped in kefie, the dangerous face of Audrey Hepburn, who refuses. meet. your eye. But it was the ring that gave him his third finger. Combine something with a woman's ornament, with madness, with a bullet: this is the story of Khaled, the reason for the constant power of his image. Beauty mixed with violence.
And the ring? "I made it from a hand grenade pin - the first grenade I used in training," he said. "I just wrapped it in a bullet."
Leile Khaled - the international captain of the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a popular "terrorist girl" and "deadly beauty" of the 1970s - is now 57 and is sitting with me in the House of Commons for his first. interview on British soil. His cheekbones were still like knives; his eyes are soft but glitter as he moves. A Rothmans cigarette always hung between his fingers (he once said of a potentially boring time in Kuwait: "I was thinking of politics and a cigarette on a chain - I didn't need any more detours").
Of course, he wore a kefii, wrapped in Palestinian fur in red, green, black, and white, like a scarf. But now it looks completely different than in the famous photo, not only because of age. Since the photo was taken in 1969, after his first (successful) hijacking of a TWA aircraft, Khaled has undergone at least six facial cosmetic procedures so that no one will recognize him. He refuses to wander with the face of the icon.
"The surgeon just made a few differences in my nose and rectum," he said. "But it worked. Nobody knew me." He opted for surgery without general anesthesia; for, as he says in his autobiography, "I have a thing higher and more sublime than my own, a thing in which all private interests and worries must be satisfied."
Such a revolutionary language is a reminder of Khaled from a completely different time: a time when kidnappings were a political tool, a time when commitment, extreme risk and sacrifice were praised and always romantic. Her sexuality has always been emphasized; back in 1980, Norwegian newspapers made fun of her "bombs" (Norwegian breast snake) and in 1975 she was the inspiration for Leela, the fox partner Dr Who.
He was a con man in armed struggle; Like his hero Che Guevara, Khaled has magic and faith. However, he despised his revolutionary colleagues in the West: "We find it very amusing that they sincerely believe that they are making a 'revolution' when they undress in public, occupy a university building or call obscene bureaucrats," he says. The operation meant that Khaled had committed his second kidnapping without revelation; this time on an El Al plane from Amsterdam. "At the airport in Amsterdam, my partner Patrick [Arguello, Nicaraguan] and I were stopped by Israeli officials," he said. "They searched our bags carefully, but they didn't find them there. Because I had the grenades in my pockets." He took a deep breath. "We have passports from Honduras. The officer said to me, 'Do you speak Spanish?' I immediately said, 'Si señor' - I am happy because those are the only words I know.
In the middle of the flight, Khaled and Arguello tried to attack the cockpit. They knocked on the door; Khaled gripped the pegs of his grenades and ordered the captain to insert them. But there were armed guards on the plane and they started firing. "Patrick was shot in the back four times and another man came with a bottle of whiskey and hit her in the head," Khaled said. "It was horrible." Why didn't they shoot him? "I have grenades," she said, shrugging. "Eventually I got hit in the back of the head and I lost consciousness when I woke up, they tied me up and kicked me.
"The passengers were shouting, I heard the woman shout: Stop the bleeding." But we had very strict instructions: do not harm passengers. Just protect yourself. "
But grenades can harm passengers if they launch them themselves. "I don't want the plane to explode," he said loudly. "It was just a threat." (While the PFLP was involved in other controversial armed actions in Israel, including some that resulted in the deaths of civilians, no one was killed in any of the kidnappings in which Khaled was involved.
The plane landed at Heathrow and Khaled was taken to Ealling Police Station, where he was detained for 28 days until Prime Minister Edward Heath released him in exchange for a Western hostage held by the PFLP. His stay in Britain will be comfortable, he said. "People want so much. They say to themselves, 'Is this the right one? They can't believe it. This little creature is sitting on the couch. I'm 26 years old and I'm very thin. I have two police officers who are with me in my cell and we always talk about our things and our suffering. When I left, I sent them books on Palestine; they asked me. We chat. One of them has a problem with his girlfriend and we always talk about it. "
It's an interesting idea: a Palestinian revolutionary and Ealing's policewoman are looking for a common language by referring to men.
Although it may not be so surprising. Women have always been in a relationship with Khaled. As Eileen Macdonald put it in her book Shoot the Women First: "In one night, it destroyed a million and a million taboos and changed the minds of hundreds of other angry young people. Women from all over the world."
She enthusiastically overcame patriarchal prohibitions in Arab society, where women traditionally subordinated their husbands by taking on the same role in the struggle with men, divorcing and remarrying, had children in the late 1930s, and rejected vanity by correcting him. face. cause.
However, there are problems with femininity and the warrior. "In the beginning, all women must prove that we can match men in armed struggle," Khaled said. "That's why we want to be men - even in appearance." In his book The Demon Lover: The Sexuality of Terrorism, Robin Morgan writes about Khaled disappearing in two ways.
The men in his organization were angry at the attention he received, while the women were disappointed that he was not talking about women, but only about revolution. (She once said, 'I represent the Palestinians, not the women.') This reflects something that Mairead Farrell, an IRA volunteer who was shot by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988, once said: ... We cannot end our oppression as women until we put oppression first in our country. "
But things seem to have changed for Khaled. "I don't think we should prove ourselves as women by imitating men," she said. "I learned that a woman can be a fighter, a freedom fighter, a political activist and that she can love and be loved, she can be married, she has children, she can be a mother.
"You see, in the beginning we were only interested in the revolution. We are not yet politically mature. The issue of women is part of our struggle, but not the only one. Revolution must also mean life; every aspect of life. "Was she the first Palestinian or the first woman?" "I can't help it," she said. Woman and Palestinian at the same time. "
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