Leila Khaled: Hijacker Page #2

Yitzhak Rabin.

Leila and her companion

are detained by the Syrian police

but mostly for the

sake of appearances.

They are both released

after three weeks.

The hi-Jacking is still a success.

Leila and the Palestinians

are suddenly world famous.

Foreign newspapers start reporting

on the situation in the Middle-East.

Leila, however, has disappeared.

Nobody knows where she is.

Some say she is being protected

by her organization,

the PFLP, the Popular Front

for the Liberation of Palestine.

Another rumor says she has

visited a Lebanese plastic surgeon

to change her appearance.

- Hello, is this Leila Khaled?

- Yes.

Hello, my name is Lina Makboul

and I'm calling from Sweden.

Hello.

I have read about you and I would

like to make a film about you.

- A film?

Its early morning when

Leila Khaled and her companion

Patrick Arguello, board Flight 219

from Amsterdam to New York.

The PFLP has planned

a synchronized attack.

A number of planes will be

hi-jacked at the same time

and converge on

Dawson Field in Jordan.

Leila's mission is to hi-Jack

an lsraeli EL AL plane.

But this time, nothing

goes according to plan.

I told my security man to

come to the cockpit.

Something is wrong,

I don't know what, I don't feel easy...

I was inside prepared already

to something which I didn't realize.

We where in the air sailing smoothly.

I was reading and they were very quiet.

They didn't say a word to anyone neither to

themselves, to one another nor to me.

And then suddenly he rose, and he let

out a bellow, an animal-like bellow.

And he had this little tiny pistol in his hand...

A few seconds later we started to hear

knocking very hard on the door

which was closed.

Flight engineer looks through,

we had some way to look what's going on.

He says:
"Look, I see a woman

with two handgrenades."

"I see a man with a gun pointing to a man."

And few seconds later we heard

the voice saying:

"Open the door. if you don't open, we are

going to shoot the person".

At this time I had to play God.

I am going now to put the airplane

into a negative G.

Instead of flying like this,

it goes like this.

So everybody... there is no floor

so he must fall down.

We felt that the airplane was going up

and down in a few strong movements.

At the same time this happened, some guy

got up behind the woman and disarmed her...

got the grenades away from her.

There was approximately three shoots fired.

A security man apparently

killed the male hijacker.

A steward is wounded.

EL AL flight 219 is forced to make

an emergency landing in London.

Where Leila is detained.

Leila Khaled has been held here at the

Ealing headquarters of exdivision.

She's being detained under the alien's

order in a cell 12 feet by 10

and she is accompanied 24 hours a day

by two woman police officers.

In custody, Leila's concern

is for her companion.

She's unaware that the PFLP

has succeeded in its mission.

Three planes have been forced to

land at Dawson Field in Jordan.

And all the passengers

are held hostage.

All women and children who should

have been released were released.

Our demands and conditions are very

clear and we will not go back on them.

These conditions are...

the release of comrade Leila Khaled and

the martyr's body and their arrival to a

safe place in exchange for

the British hostages.

What are they going to do

when they'll be free?

She will try to do it again.

A reliable source has confirmed that the

blowing up of the planes was intended

as a warning to the British government.

She will do it again.

To kill lsraelis-men, women and children

this is what their organization stands for.

At 7 pm London announced in Arabic

that Britain would swap Leila for hostages.

An astonishing step for a British Government.

She will be taken from here Just a few miles

down the road to a north held airport

from where she will be flown

back to the Middle East.

And Leila Khaled walked away free,

to take her place in Palestinian history.

My name is Lina.

I was brought up in Sweden

by Palestinian parents.

I'm sitting in a taxi

on my way to meet Leila Khaled.

She was my teenage idol.

She was brave and beautiful.

And she was Palestinian.

And we both wanted the same thing.

A free Palestine.

While the men sat in cafes

and complained about oppression,

she went out and

did something about it.

Now I'm an adult and things

are not quite that simple.

I now realise that the people in

those planes were human beings.

Innocent people returning

from their holidays.

All my life, people have started

discussing terrorism and hi-jackings

as soon as my roots come

up in the conversation.

And it was Leila Khaled

who gave us this bad reputation.

But I guess I'm still a bit curious

about what she did.

And I still want

a Palestine that is free.

But I don't know if we will agree

on how far you can go

to achieve that freedom.

- I'm not sitting nicely.

- Ok.

- I like to sit like this.

- OK, you will only be seen to here.

That's not what it's about.

It's not right for a woman to sit like this.

- I see. And how does a woman sit?

- Like this with one leg in front of the other.

We have tape thirteen in A-camera and

tape seven in B-camera...

Lina, go ahead with marker now!

You became pretty famous after the

first hi-jacking. How did that feel?

For a while I felt I was

very important person.

But then I became scared,

scared of myself.

I was scared I would

suffer delusions of grandeur.

That's why I moved

to a refugee camp.

I asked the PFLP for somewhere to

live so I could get back to reality.

Miss Khaled, is it possible that you can say

any more to us at this stage?

You don't want to talk at this stage?

May we possibly come and see you later?

What kind of questions

did they ask you?

Some Journalists asked

very personal questions.

They asked - was I in love?

That annoyed me.

Who did they think I was?

I'm a fighter. Ask me about my work!

One asked me how long I usually

stood in front of the mirror.

I said:
"What kind of question is that?"

They thought I was unfeminine.

As if I wasn't human.

One of them wondered if I was in love.

"Did I have a boyfriend?"

I said:
"No!"

After, he wrote that I was a cold

person who couldn't fall in love.

These were the sort of questions I got.

One asked if I've had sex.

What questions!

Am I an actress or a dancer maybe?

One of my answers shocked them.

I said it was easier to hi-jack

an airplane than to teach.

One asked:
"What do you mean?"

My pupils never stopped

talking when I told them to.

On the airplane, everybody did.

Wasn't it a bit much,

changing your face?

I was going to hi-jack another plane

and I didn't want to be recognised.

I was to hi-Jack an EL AL plane and

my photo was everywhere.

It was definitely necessary.

I've seen photos of you.

You were very beautiful.

- Weren't you afraid of becoming ugly?

- I was in the middle of the fight...

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