Airplane Hijacker Leila Khaled Invited to Speak in UK at Palestine Solidarity Campaign Fundraiser

Leila Khaled of Palestinian Liberation Front attends a press conference upon her arrival at the O.R. Tambo international Airport, in Johannesburg, on Feb. 6, 2015. Gianluigi Guercia/AFP via Getty Images

A Palestinian woman who hijacked two airplanes in the 1960s and 1970s and called the Hamas terrorists who carried out the Oct. 7 attack “freedom fighters” has been invited to give a speech in the UK.

Leila Khaled, 79, was invited to speak via videolink at a fundraiser organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s (PSC’s) West Midlands branch in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, on Friday.

An archived invitation for the ticket bills Ms. Khaled as a “former militant” and “former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” (PFLP), though in a recent interview with Australian socialist newspaper Green Left, it is implied she is still active in the group, describing her as “a member of the national committee” of the PFLP.

According to the event’s description, she is scheduled to speak alongside Huda Ammori, the co-founder of protest group Palestine Action. Tickets for the three-course meal cost £25.

‘Leila Khaled Is a Terrorist’

Lord Walney, the government’s adviser on political violence told The Times of London on Monday: “Even by their own recent standards, it is staggering that the PSC wants to give a platform to [Ms. Khaled].

“The decision to host Leila Khaled underlines the importance of all mainstream party leaders making clear their MPs and councillors should not be engaging with the PSC while they are in the grip of this militancy.”

“The PSC’s hardline approach is undermining their own cause by opening the door to extremism and intimidation in communities,” he added.

Director of the Jewish Leadership Council Claudia Mendoza told the newspaper: “Leila Khaled is a terrorist who has hijacked planes and in recent months sought to defend, legitimise and even glorify the barbaric Hamas attack of October 7. It is outrageous and inexcusable that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign would host such a figure in the UK.

“By doing so, they make it clear that they are not interested in peace but in defending those who wish to murder Israeli civilians. On Friday, the prime minister said that we must ban people ‘whose aim is to undermine its values’. In this case, the prime minister must put words into action and prevent her from speaking.”

Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street told Nick Ferrari on LBC on Tuesday that he was not comfortable with the reports that Ms. Khaled would be giving a speech, saying that he would be speaking to police about whether the event can be cancelled.

Mr. Street said: “I will be following up whether it is appropriate that this should occur and whether, actually, the police could stop it occurring for reasons of public order. So that’s an instinctive response. I haven’t read the detail, but I can tell you, Nick, I’ve dealt with things like this in the past and dealt with them robustly.”

Black September

Ms. Khaled took part in the hijackings of two commercial airliners during the 1960s and 1970s, a time which saw a large number of the incidents involving Palestinian terrorists.

She was involved in the 1969 hijacking of a TWA flight heading to Tel Aviv and in 1970 attempted to hijack an El Al flight from Amsterdam, the latter incident part of the international hijacking crisis known as Black September.

Speaking to the New Internationalist in July 2023, Ms. Khaled detailed how, armed with a hand grenade and a pistol, she and her co-hijackers took over the TWA aircraft, telling the captain she was from the PFLP and the name of her unit “is Che Guevara,” before ordering him to divert the plane to Damascus, Syria.

In the second attempted hijacking, however, Ms. Khaled was overpowered on the airplane and arrested on her arrival to the UK. The British government later negotiated with the PFLP for her release in exchange for hostages.

In a 2001 interview with the BBC, the hijacker explained that she was able to get on the airplane despite being well-known after the 1969 incident because she had had plastic surgery to alter her physical appearance.

Khaled Called Oct. 7 Hamas Terrorists ‘Freedom Fighters’

Speaking to Green Left on Feb. 18, Ms. Khaled, who now lives in Jordan, said that the terrorists who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 were “freedom fighters,” and claimed that they “did not attack ordinary people,” alleging Hamas had attacked “military settlements.”

“Neither Israel nor the Western media could prove that there were massacres,” she claimed, despite media widely reporting the official death toll to be 1,200 people.

According to the United States’ National Counterterrorism Center’s Counterterrorism Guide, the PFLP “combines Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology and is focused on destroying Israel and removing Western influence from the Middle East.”

It has been designated as a terrorist organisation by nations around the world including the United States and Canada, but not the UK. The UK has banned the separate but similarly-named Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

The PFLP was one of several international terrorist groups that staged anti-U.S. attacks that had the support of the Soviet KGB during the Cold War.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign Criticised for ‘From the River to the Sea’ Stunt

The PSC is one of six pro-Palestine organisations—along with the Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of Al Aqsa, and the Muslim Association of Britain—that have been coordinating pro-Palestinian protests in London since October.

In February, Downing Street criticised the PSC for beaming “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” onto the Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben.

The controversial slogan is believed by some to be genocidal, with Conservative backbencher Andrew Percy saying last month that it “denies Jews self-determination in their homeland, calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and, more importantly, it is chanted by people and promoted by groups who are in many cases openly anti-Semitic and who call for Jews to be wiped out.”

The Epoch Times contacted the PSC for comment.