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Board slams BDS for bringing terrorist Khaled
ANT KATZ
“With the world still reeling from the horrific terrorist attacks carried out in Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia, the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has announced that it will be bringing notorious plane hijacker Leila Khaled to South Africa as its guest next month,” said the SA Jewish Board of Deputies’ national chairman, Mary Kluk today.
RIGHT: The Leila Khaled pre-publicity campaign
In its pre-publicity campaign, says Kluk, BDS-SA, the local affiliate of a US-based NGO, “depicts Khaled holding an AK-47 and represents her past hijacking of a US airliner from Rome to Athens, and an attempted hijacking of an Israeli airliner, as something to be admired.
“Terrorism, whether carried out for political, religious or any other reasons, is both a crime against humanity and a deadly threat to world peace,” said Kluk.
LEFT: Leila Khaled was involved in the planning and execution of multiple-plane hijackings in the late 1960s – like this one landing in the Jordanian desert
Kluk went on to say that the Board is therefore “appalled that any organisation, especially one purporting to be a human rights movement, intends bringing a known perpetrator of these acts to this country.”
By depicting Leila Khaled as a heroic figure whom South Africans should look up to and identify with, BDS is sending out the worst possible message at a time when South Africa needs to stand with the global community in confronting the scourge of terrorism.
Notorious for fostering hatred & division in SA
“BDS-SA is notorious for activities that foster hatred and division between South Africans so as to further its vendetta against anyone and anything associated with the State of Israel,” said Kluk in a media statement.
“Among other things, its supporters have sung ‘Shoot the Jew’ at anti-Israel rallies, threatened and intimidated Woolworths employees and deposited a pig’s head in a Woolworths store as a way of ‘sending a message’ to South African Jewry.”
RIGHT: Mohammed Desai of BDS who orchestrated the activities at Wits where “Shoot the Jew” was sung in his presence
By inviting Khaled to this country, said Kluk, BDS-SA had “conclusively demonstrated yet again that it has no interest in promoting peace, dialogue, reconciliation or understanding”.
On the contrary, she added, “it is a movement quite prepared to market even a known terrorist in order to further its extremist, hate-filled agenda.
South Africans, particularly in these fraught and dangerous times, should make it clear that they want nothing whatever to do with such offensive tactics.
“The SAJBD is committed to any constructive initiative in bringing about peace to the Middle East,” said Kluk.
More on this story on Jewish Report Online:
07 JAN: LEILA KHALED IN SA SPEAKING TOUR NEXT MONTH + 3 Comments
10 JAN: SAIPAC’s HERSCH TO GOV’T: DON’T LET LEILA INTO SA + 4 Comments
abu mamzer
January 12, 2015 at 2:07 pm
‘Let’s not forget minister Rehavam Zeévi,murdered by the PFLP’
Choni
January 12, 2015 at 2:12 pm
‘I say \”bring her in.\” More young Jews will make Aliyah.’
Choni
January 12, 2015 at 4:23 pm
‘Is this a joke? Arafat, and Abbas , the biggest Jew killers since Hitler were not only allowed into this country but also ‘welcomed’ by the S.A.J.B.D.
Now you have the ‘chutzpah’ to complain about a has-been terrorist.’
Mordechai
January 12, 2015 at 9:51 pm
‘Is this the same Mary Kluk and SAJBD who met with Abbas’
Mordechai
January 12, 2015 at 10:07 pm
‘Following from my previous post this is the same SAJBD chair Mary Kluk who \”broke bread\” with Abbas, denier of the Holocaust, President of an organization (the PA) who is in government with Hamas, who wants to take Israel to the ICC etc, etc. My advice to Mary Kluk is to resign as chair of the SAJBD, apologise to Israel and world Jewry for meeting Abbas and telling us what a \”great guy\” he is, and then to look in the mirror and contemplate her meeting Abbas and trying to justify the meeting’
Mordechai
January 13, 2015 at 4:32 am
‘Choni, I could not agree with you more – you are 100% correct.’
BDS WORKS
January 13, 2015 at 8:08 am
‘Article on Leila Khaled from the last time she was in South Africa (& met with Nelson Mandela) –> https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/time-for-sanctions-against-israel-khaled-1.285400?ot=inmsa.ArticlePrintPageLayout.ot
‘
Denis Solomons
January 13, 2015 at 8:43 am
‘Leila Khaled shouldn’t be allowed into the country and she definitely shouldn’t be allowed to speak!
The country cannot harbour and encourage terrorists !
‘
David Hersch
January 13, 2015 at 9:57 am
‘BDS, the self-justification and ex post facto invented justification of a dastardly crime does not let you or this horrid terrorist off the hook.
The hijackings
TWA Flight 840 (1969)
On August 29, 1969, Khaled was part of a team that hijacked TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Athens, diverting the Boeing 707 to Damascus. No one was injured, but the aircraft was blown up after hostages had disembarked. According to some media sources, the PFLP leadership thought that Yitzhak Rabin, then Israeli ambassador to the United States, would be on board. This was, however, denied by Khaled and others. After this hijacking, and after a now famous picture of her holding an AK-47 rifle
and wearing a kaffiyeh was widely published, she
underwent six plastic surgery operations on her nose and chin to conceal her identity and allow her to take part in a future hijacking.
El Al Flight 219 (1970)
On September 6, 1970, Khaled and Patrick Argüello, a Nicaraguan-American, attempted the hijack of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York City as part of the Dawson’s Field hijackings, a series of almost simultaneous hijackings carried out by the PFLP. The attack was foiled, when Israeli sky marshals killed Argüello before eventually overpowering Khaled. Although she was carrying two hand grenades at
the time, Khaled said she had received very strict instructions not to threaten passengers on the civilian flight. (Argüello shot a member of the flight crew).
The pilot diverted the aircraft to Heathrow airport in London, where Khaled was delivered to Ealing police station. On October 1, the British government released her as part of a prisoner exchange. The next
year, the PFLP abandoned the tactic of hijacking, although splinter movements would continue to hijack airplanes.
Dawson’s Field hijackings
In the Dawson’s Field hijackings (6 September 1970), four jet aircraft bound for New York City and one for London were hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and instead landed at the PFLP’s \”Revolutionary Airport\”. By the end of the incident, one hijacker had been killed and one injury reported.
TWA Flight 741 from Frankfurt am Main (a Boeing 707) and Swissair Flight 100 from Zürich-Kloten Airport (a Douglas DC-8) landed at Dawson’s Field, a remote
desert airstrip near Zarka, Jordan, formerly used as a
British Royal Air Force base.
The hijacking of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam (another 707) was foiled: hijacker Patrick Argüello was shot and killed, and his partner Leila Khaled was subdued and turned over to British authorities in London. Two PFLP hijackers who were prevented
from boarding the El Al flight instead hijacked Pan Am Flight 93, a Boeing 747, diverting the large plane first to Beirut and then to Cairo rather than the small Jordanian airstrip.
A fifth plane, BOAC Flight 775, a Vickers VC10 coming from Bahrain, was hijacked on 9 September by a PFLP sympathizer and brought to Dawson’s Field in order to
pressure the British to free Khaled.
While the majority of the 310 hostages were transferred to Amman and freed on 11 September the PFLP segregated the flight crews and Jewish passengers, keeping the 56 Jewish hostages in custody, while releasing the non-Jews. Six hostages in particular were kept because they were men and
American citizens, not necessarily Jews. The six men held in particular were Dr. Robert Norman Schwartz, a U.S. Defense Department researcher stationed in
Bangkok, Thailand; James Lee Woods, Dr. Schwartz’s assistant and security detail; Geral Berkowitz, an American-born Jew and college chemistry professor;
Rabbi Abraham Harrari-Raful and his brother Rabbi Joseph Harrari-Raful, two Brooklyn school teachers; and John Hollingsworth, a U.S. State Department
employee. Dr. Schwartz was a catholic. On 12 September prior to their announced deadline, the PFLP used explosives to destroy the empty planes, as they anticipated a counterstrike.
The PFLP’s exploitation of Jordanian territory in the drama was another instance of the increasingly autonomous Arab Palestinian activity within the Kingdom of Jordan – a serious challenge to the Hashemite monarchy of King Hussein. Hussein declared martial law on 16 September and from 17 to 27 September his forces deployed into Palestinian-controlled areas in what became known as Black
September in Jordan, nearly triggering a regional war involving Syria, Iraq, and Israel with potentially global consequences.
Swift Jordanian victory, however, enabled a 30 September deal in which the remaining PFLP hostages were released in exchange for Khaled and three PFLP members in a Swiss prison.
Leila Khaled remain an unpunished international criminal and terrorist and nothing from BDS or any other Islamic body tap-dancing around the real facts can or will change this and she should not be allowed int South Africa.’
nat cheiman
January 16, 2015 at 4:19 am
‘BDS in fact should be declared an unlawful org. but this is not going to happen. SA is the laughing stock of the world at the moment. Sapo bankrupt . SAA bankrupt. No electricity (Eskom bankrupt). The government bankrupt and devoid of moral fibre.
Can you imagine IS having free reign here or even Boko Haram?
Our army and police are not trained to deal with all of this. Khaled and BDS are just the beginning of what is happening in Europe and I hope I am WRONG!!!!!!!!!’
Choni
January 16, 2015 at 6:57 am
‘You’re not wrong at all Nat . In fact you are 100% right.
S.Africa is NOT good for Jews. Never will be.
‘