Leila Khaled, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which claimed responsibility for the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rahavam Ze’evi, says the group’s next target is Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Washington should take special note of this threat.
Why? Because it was Washington that pressured Great Britain’s Edward Heath into releasing her from custody in exchange for the freeing of hostages taken in what was until Sept. 11 of this year the most spectacular multiple airline hijacking ever conducted.
In September 1970, the PFLP seized four civilian airliners, blowing up three of them in the Jordanian desert while bargaining with the lives of 56 U.S. and European passengers for the release of Arab prisoners in Britain, Germany and Switzerland.
One of those seven was Khaled, who had been jailed after an unsuccessful attempt to commandeer an El Al flight. Her partner in crime, a Nicaraguan named Patrick Arguello, was shot dead by Israeli guards.
It’s too bad Khaled didn’t meet the same fate. Because now she is free to terrorize, threaten and kill more innocent people.
Heath told his cabinet less than three days after her capture that he had “acquiesced in a U.S. proposal authorizing the Red Cross to offer the release of Leila Khaled, together with the terrorists held by the Swiss and German authorities, in exchange for the hostages.”
Khaled was none too repentant about her crime at the time. She wrote a letter to her mother from the West London police station saying that she was being treated “as if I were an official state guest.”
“I do not worry about myself,” she wrote. “The only thing that grieves and hurts me today is that I am not now carrying arms and am not sharing with my people in battle.”
Khaled was referring to the war under way in Jordan between King Hussein’s army and the Palestinians. In what became known as “Black September,” Jordan killed hundreds of Palestinians and ran the rest of them out of Jordan.
So, Khaled lived to fight another day – but not against the Jordanians. She has been allied with Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization ever since in a war on Israel and the West.
Her PFLP invented the kind of spectacular hijackings perfected more recently by Osama bin Laden.
But, at least until now, Khaled and her group have not been included in President Bush’s war on terrorism. As part of Arafat’s organization, they have been exempt from attack. Israel has been pressured not to target its leaders. And the group’s sponsors in Syria have been coddled and even asked to join our alliance against terror.
Amazing but true.
While the PFLP is on the official U.S. list of terrorist groups, it has never been subjected to discipline by Arafat. Yet, in 1993, Arafat agreed as part of the Oslo Accords to take action against all PLO elements and personnel who engage in terrorism. Between 1994 and 1999 alone, the PFLP carried out at least 19 terrorist attacks, killing 14 Israelis and wounding 14.
More recently, on Sept. 4, Israel arrested six PFLP members who admitted planning a car-bomb attack on the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem. Arafat still took no action against the group.
No question Khaled and the PFLP are bad apples – hard-core terrorist killers who led the way for the bin Ladens of the world.
Yet, in this crazy war on terrorism, somehow Khaled, the PFLP and Arafat still don’t qualify as targets – as enemies.
I don’t get it. Do you?
The PFLP may not have killed 5,000 people at the World Trade Center, but the group is responsible for the deaths of at least 14 Americans, including 11 Hispanic tourists, an aide to the late Sen. Jacob Javits and the wife of a prominent Michigan minister.
Arafat bears responsibility for all this. It’s time for the U.S. to unshackle Israel and allow Jerusalem to wage its own just war on terrorism. And Israel ought to start by wiping out the PFLP.
No mercy. No bargains. No trading prisoners. No negotiations. Just victory.
Don’t miss Joseph Farah’s exclusive report “Jihad in America” in the November issue of Whistleblower magazine, WorldNetDaily’s monthly offline publication. Order your subscription now.
