Leila Khaled is a terrorist. That is her only claim on the world’s attention. In 1969, working with the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), she helped hijack a TWA plane (Flight 840), flying from Rome to Tel Aviv, forcing it to land in Damascus. She had thought that Yitzhak Rabin would be aboard the plane, and could either be held for a prisoner swap, or killed, but she was mistaken. In Damascus, she and her fellows blew up the nose cone of the plane. She then was given refuge by Hafez al-Assad, and by the next year she was at it again. On September 6, 1970, with another terrorist, she hijacked another plane, this one an El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York. While the plane was flying, two Israeli sky marshals killed the other terrorist, Patrick Argüello, a Nicaraguan–American. Khaled was carrying two grenades at the time, and though she had been given instructions not to threaten passengers on the civilian flight, she disobeyed. While being overpowered, she withdrew the safety pin from one of the grenades and rolled it down the aisle towards the economy class passengers; miraculously, it did not explode. Had it done so, it would have caused general depressurization and the probable crash of the plane. In other words, Leila Khaled was a would-be mass murder, who had tried to blow up a passenger plane in flight. That should be kept firmly in mind.
Professor Rabab Abdulhadi of San Francisco State University had invited Leila Khaled to participate in a virtual seminar in September 2020. She was a guest at the event, entitled “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice and Resistance: A Conversation with Leila Khaled.” Because of Khaled’s participation, the online seminar, which had briefly streamed on YouTube, was denied a platform by both Zoom and Facebook, and the service provider then cut its feed.
Abdulhadi filed a grievance, claiming that SFSU had violated her academic freedom. A report on the disposition of her grievance is here: “Faculty Panel Says SFSU Violated Professor’s Academic Freedom When Event With Palestinian Terrorist Was Denied Platform,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, October 15, 2021:
A three-member faculty panel at San Francisco State University has upheld a grievance filed by Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, ruling that the school violated the scholar’s academic freedom when a 2020 seminar she organized was cut off because it featured an affiliate of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The online seminar, which briefly streamed live on YouTube in Sept. 2020 before the service provider cut its feed, had been denied a platform by both Zoom and Facebook over the participation of Leila Khaled.
The Faculty Hearing Committee at SFSU said Thursday that school officials violated the academic freedom of Abdulhadi by “not providing adequate support” to the organizers of the event, and that they had caused “mental health stress.”
What kind of “support” should the university have provided to Abdulhadi? It was two social media giants, Zoom and Facebook, that pulled the plug on the seminar because of Leila Khaled, not the university. In demanding “adequate support,” did Abdulhadi expect her university to take on Zoom and Facebook? How exactly would that have been done? In a lawsuit, that could cost the university a huge sum in legal fees, going up against the armies of lawyers that the two social media giants could field, how likely was It that SFSU would prevail? How long would such a lawsuit have gone on before being decided, possibly years after the seminar itself was scheduled to take place?
And what about that “mental health stress” Abdulhadi claims she suffered? Professor Rabab Abdulhadi doesn’t strike me as a shrinking violet, a delicate damsel subject to mental distress because her seminar couldn’t appear online. She’s aggressive, combative, an “angry Arab.” Perhaps she is making that claim so as to be in a position to sue her university for the fat settlement that a successful claim of “mental distress” might elicit.
The panel cited an email from school administrator warning Abdulhadi and co-instructor Tomomi Kinukawa of the possible risks of engaging in criminal activity. In denying a platform to the event with Khaled, Zoom at the time noted the possible violation of its terms of service because of the speaker’s reported affiliation with the PFLP, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization.
The faculty panel considering Abdulhadi’s claim that her academic freedom was violated by SFSU found an email that in fact helps to exonerate the school: it was sent to Abdulhadi by an SFSU administrator who was concerned that by allowing a known terrorist to appear at the university-sponsored seminar, the school might be opening itself up to charges that, in holding up Leila Khaled for admiration and emulation, it was engaged in incentivizing terrorism. Zoom, a private party not subject to the First Amendment, had no trouble in finding a possible violation of its terms of service were Khaled allowed to appear, because of her link to the PFLP, which has been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
In finding for Abdulhadi, the panel called on SFSU to issue a public apology to the professor, issue a “public letter of support of faculty with regards to acaldemic freedom,” and provide a site for rescheduling the event.
Let’s get this straight. That three-person panel of fellow faculty wants SFSU to publicly apologize to Abdulhadi for not standing up to Zoom and Facebook and somehow to force them — how, exactly? — to carry the seminar where Leila Khaled has pride of place. And why should President Mahoney issue an apology to Professor Abdulhadi, when it is she who wishes to honor someone who tried to blow up a plane in flight with a hand grenade? What would be the effect on SFSU’s reputation were it to push back against social media. so that a would-be mass-murderer might appear as an “honored guest” at one of its seminars? What might be the effect of such an appearance on government contracts with SFSU faculty? How does Rabab Abdulhadi think SFSU should behave if a professor were to invite Robert Spencer or Ibn Warraq or Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak at a seminar on Islam? I’m sure she would be the first to demand that those invitations be rescinded. And if any of those guests actually appeared, she’d be trying to block their entry into the lecture hall, screaming her head off — academic freedom be damned.
The Thursday ruling prompted a support group for the professor to accuse SFSU of “complicity with Zionist and right wing groups aiming to silence Palestinian voices on campus” on Facebook.
That “support group” thinks that “Zionist and right wing groups” — carefully unnamed — are aiming to “silence Palestinian voices on campus.” No, they aren’t. They do not object to “Palestinian voices” no matter how deeply unpleasant but, rather, to the voices of “Palestinian terrorists,” including those who tried to blow up a plane in flight. That is a different thing.
The group also said that SFSU President Lynn Mahoney had three weeks to decide on whether to uphold the panel’s findings….
The bullying never ends. This faculty group that has given SFSU’s President exactly “three weeks” to meet their demands – where do they get off? Who appointed them? How dare they think they can order the university’s president around? And what will happen if she doesn’t apologize publicly to Abdulhadi, and doesn’t issue a “public letter of support of faculty with regards to academic freedom and provide a site for rescheduling the event”? If she does decide to do anything, it ought to be to reaffirm the principle of academic freedom “which is not absolute, and certainly does not apply to those who would celebrate terrorists.” As to providing a “site for rescheduling the event,” there are still the same obstacles – Zoom and Facebook — as before. They will not have changed their minds about blocking the appearance of Leila Khaled. Why should President Lynn Mahoney be held responsible for what those social media sites decide should be blocked? Abdulhadi and her willing collaborators appear not to understand that the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause applies to encroachments on speech by the government, not by private parties. Facebook and Zoom can ban whatever they want. Twitter can stop Donald Trump from appearing on its site, and it did. I’m fairly sure that Rabab Abdulhadi has no objection to that.
For the sake of SFSU’s reputation, and for her own, I hope President Mahoney ignores those preposterous demands, and reiterates the common understanding that academic freedom should not extend to the glorification of terrorists, and that, in any case, social media companies can ban whatever they like. If Rabab Abdulhadi and her rabid supporters are enraged to discover that the Free Speech Clause does not protect speech banned by private parties, that’s too bad.
Mischief Maker in the Land says
She is only allowed half the platform of a man.
Michael Copeland says
Is she still wearing her bullet ring?
mortimer says
Failed mass murderer and failed suicide killer Leila Khaled is an Islamic terrorist. She believes the jihad doctrine of Islam. She is one of less than 1% of Muslims who are prepared to give up their lives for Mohammed. Western politicians make the mistake of assuming that Muslims do not support jihadists like Leila Khaled, but that is not what opinion surveys show. About 15% of Muslims worldwide do support terrorist groups, 35% of Muslims are virtual apostates, and the rest are ambivalent to jihad, supporting it sometimes.
The opinion that is big among Muslims is the idea they should admire and venerate Mohammed more than Allah. Mohammed was a terrorist as depicted in the primary Islamic source texts, so whether they realize it or not, most Muslims are admirers of a genocidal terrorist.
The sooner Western people realize who Mohammed is, the better. Mohammed is not a benign figure. I have observed that in the ten years, Mohammedans have gradually reduced trying to depict Mohammed as benign.
Mohammed said, “I was made victorious through TERROR.” – Bukhari 4.52.220
Oskar says
You lost your mind to call Leila Khaleed an “Islamic terrorist” and “jihadist.” First, she is not a religious person, and secondly she is a member of a secular, Marxist-Leninist liberation organization, so she cannot be a jihadist. But if she is a jihadist as you stupidly claim, still no one can blame her. Not all jihadists are terrorists, real terrorists are those who pushed her people out of their lands.
And then be careful what you write you smarty, all-knowing, hate-mongerer.
Westman says
She tried to kill passengers on an airplane that she helped hijack, so she is a terrorist by the definition of all such terrorists. She is also formely banned from the US as a TERRORIST.
The so-called “resistance” of which she is part is very much driven by Islam which she herself states: “…we have seen, within the Palestinian movement, but also more generally in the Arab world, a turn from the predominance of nationalism to the predominance of Islamism.”
In aiding that Islamic drive toward the destruction of Israel, Khalid is every bit an Islamic terrorist and a jihadist supporter. Those who aid crime, an accomplice, are as cupable as those who commit them.
Oskar says
Her quote about Arab nationalism and Islamism still does not make her an “Islamic terrorist” and “jihadist”, as stupid pigtimer claims. If trying to destroy the invader Israelis makes her a terrorist, then Israel must be the ultra-terrorist force on this universe that ever existed.
Also, in below you called the traditional Arab cloth kafiyyah a “terrorist”. You have neither respect for the culture of Arabs nor their right to live in their homelands. Not to mention how stupid calling a traditional cloth “terrorist”.
Westman says
Nice try Oskar. Yasser Arafat made the “traditional Arab cloth kafiyyah” a terrorist symbol and you quite well know it. And it has since been considered an agreement symbol of his intentions, the destruction of Israel, and also adopted by Hamas.
Give it up Oskar. Palestine would exist as a state today if Arabs had chosen cooperation instead of war in 1948. Now it is likely too late. Even the Saudis are tired of the continual “Palestinian” violence which you, obviously, admire. The “Palestinian’s” friends are thinning down to terrorist sponsors and Marxists. Khaled is simply monetizing herself while having no solution.
Do you support the existence of Israel and some peaceful solution or does it become obvious that you support the destruction of Israel?
gravenimage says
Oskar has claimed he is an ex-Muslim, but if so he has not actually turned away from any of the horrors of what Islam teaches.
Then he insults staunch Anti-Jihadist Mortimer by calling him a “hate mongerer” for daring to oppose terrorism. Just appalling.
Westman says
Oskar: “And then be careful what you write…”
Do you suppose that was a threat, Mortimer?
gravenimage says
Sounds like it…
john smith says
If there was any mongering Oskar it was coming from your post, and your post only.
john smith says
Hate mongering
Oskar says
Falsely calling and slandering a woman who is only job is to protect her homeland from the invader Israelis does not make pigtimer a hate-monger, but saying the truth of the criminal occupation makes me the hate-monger. Continue with your hatred-zeal.
gravenimage says
Ah yes–how dare any of us Infidels “slander” a hijacker who tried to murder pasengers with a hand grenade (she had nothing to do with it fortuitously not exploding). *Ugh*.
Westman says
Well Oskar, I saw things your way until after the second intifada. Then I looked into the history since 1947, Quran, and Hadith which laid out clearly that too many Palestinians and foreign interlopers only want the destruction of Israel as the “solution”, which closes any real approach to peace.
Peace with Israel won’t happen in my lifetime because the Quranic solution to problems with Jews is violence. In fact, if Iran gets nuclear weapons before the citizens overthrow the Mullahs, there may ultimately be no “Palestine” that is habitable.
Another thing I discovered is that there is a pecking order among ME “Arab” nations. You write as if there is some brotherhood of Arabs running to the rescue. The previous nations attcking Israel only wanted to destroy a Jewish state and actually have little respect for Palestinians. Eight Arab nations have attempted to eject Israel and are now exhausted by the Palestinian pugilistic behavior that destroys any hope for peace.
Kahled doesn’t seem to realize that her “fellow travelers” in Palestine are not Marxists and after achieving their goals will turn on her in the manner of Stalin and Trotsky. Marxism and Islam are incompatible.
gravenimage says
+1
john smith says
+2
Stan says
I don’t see that she spent time in prison.. unfricking real!!!
August 29, 1969 she hijacked TWA FL840 (Rome to Tel Aviv) The next year after multiple plastic surgeries to conceal her identity and enable her to get on a plane, with a different co-conspirator, she hijacked another plane.
“On September 6, 1970, Khaled and Patrick Argüello, a Nicaraguan–American, attempted to hijack 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 skymarshals 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. However, while being overpowered, she withdrew the safety pin from one of the grenades and rolled it down the aisle towards the economy class passengers; miraculously it did not explode.”
This pos should have been sentenced to life in prison.
Westman says
Khalid was jailed in London and escaped from what would have been a life sentence by a prisoner swap. The terrorist escaped from justice to monetize herself as an advocate, still showing photos of her young visage, draped in Yasser Arafat terrorist keffiyah, for the destruction of Israel.
Stan says
Absent from the article, at least I cannot find it, is when was she tried, and presumably convicted, of terror actions, and what was her sentence. When was she released?
Rarely says
Apparently she was traded for hostages within a month of her arrest at Heathrow.
Westman says
Imagine that! A woman who throws hand grenades at random humans and then expects to be considered a “victim” and a spokesperson.
Delusion must be a communicable disease – SFSU has caught it from Khaled. Quarantine would have been wiser.
It’s claimed that a person’s face becomes more like their personality as they age. Perhaps there is some utility in a burqa for Khaled.
Kenneth J Johnson says
I’m speedhless, just speechless. KEN
James Lincoln says
Just one question:
Is San Francisco State University the absolute worst of the worst?
Is there any other US college / university *more* unhinged?
Westman says
From the SFSU website: “San Francisco State University, a public urban university with a conscience”
Then there are, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UC Santa Cruz.
California, home of the woke and motivation for out-migrating conservatives who don’t want to pay for it anymore.
gravenimage says
Grimly true–my alma mater and the rest all in my neck of the woods.
Kenneth J Johnson says
It appears tht the Muslems (Islamis) are gaining a foothoild in one state. WOW¡¡
KEN
Infidel says
Are there still students who can afford to live in San Francisco? Or does SFSU do only remote teaching now?