Leila Khaled, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine guerrilla hijacker whose effort to hijack an El Al airliner Sept. 6 was foiled, has been hailed as a “Revolutionary Sister” in the latest issue of the “Black Panther,” the official organ of the Black Panther Party. The newspaper’s Oct. 24 issue reprints an edited version of an interview made with Miss Khaled shortly after the successful 1969 hijacking in Beirut which she commandeered. In the interview, which first appeared in the Fall 1970 issue of “Leviathan,” a leftist magazine. Miss Khaled declared: “By hijacking an airplane we can tell the American government that the Palestinian resistance is aware of whatever the American government is doing to support Israel. We know that the American government is supporting Israel in everything and this is what makes Israel so powerful, what makes Israel work against us. At the same time we are hitting tourism in Israel; we want that stopped.” The guerrilla hijacker went on to say. “The Black Panther Party has come out in support of the Popular Front and the El Fatah resistance movement, and I am with the black revolutionaries because they are defending their rights as human beings. And I’m with them in their revolutions against what is called a democratic government in the U.S. It is not at all a democratic government. I hope they can have their rights, and they can’t have their rights except by force. Force is the only way they can be had.” Miss Khaled also assailed “Zionist propaganda” which, she said, claimed “that in Israel there is a democratic socialist government.” She stated that both democracy and socialism were non-existent in that country.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.