Golda Meir versus Leila Khaled

what does justice look like?

Leila’s fight for Palestine is not due to an old, ancient attachment to her land. Her parents are not even Palestinian, but Lebanese. It is a love of justice that moves her. Like Ghassan Kanafani, she also hit a turning point during childhood when she suddenly understood her situation. Kanafani, in a painful and beautiful letter written to his son, describes the moment he realized his condition, the instant after “the disgrace of escape” when at 10 years old he witnessed the men of his family giving up their weapons to become refugees. — Paula Schmitt, 972 Magazine.

In a now ten year old interview with Paula Schmitt, Leila Khaled expressed her agreement with Gandhi, who recommended choosing violence, when faced with a choice between cowardice and violence. Khaled felt justified in the acts of terror she committed, stating she never really hurt anyone, aside from making that one woman pee her pants in fear. Khaled wants us to know that she did it to send a message to her brothers and sisters who languished in Israeli jail for committing acts of terror against the state of Israel. “This would give more strength to other freedom fighters when they are arrested, so they can face their prosecutors and at the same time they know beforehand that they will be one day released by their comrades.”

Schmitt reports that Khaled seems surprised that Lina Makboul, a Swedish filmmaker of Palestinian origin who interviewed her for the film Hijacker – The Life of Leila Khaled, believes that the PLFP hijacking terrorism of the 1960s and 70s harmed the Palestinian cause. Still, Leila Khaled regrets nothing. “I am a victim of oppression and occupation”, explains Khaled to Schmitt.

It isn’t terrorism if you’re a victim, the Palestinian logic goes.

Makboul appears to agree with this reasoning, and believes that Khaled and Palestinian Resistance Fighters had justification to do the violent things they did. She accuses Israel of terrorism because of its connection to Lehi, a militant Zionist resistance group that formed during the British Mandate for Palestine to force out the British occupying forces. States Makboul in a 2007 interview with Petra Tabeling in Qantara, “I think that, historically speaking, the Israeli state with its connection to the paramilitary [Lohamei Herut Israel – Lehi] has acted in a terrorist manner.”

Rule :: When Arabs choose violent resistance its liberation and when Jews choose violent resistance its evil oppression.

Wait. Why does the rule differ for Arabs and Jews?

Arabs and Muslims seem to believe that justice requires Jews to maintain their inferior Dhimmi status, a kind of apartheid imposed on all non-Muslims by Sharia Law, without resistance. Why should Jews agree to live in cowardice, to remain the victims of Islamic imperialism? Why does Arab justice require Jewish oppression? Jewish self determination does not require Arab oppression, it only requires an end to Muslim Brotherhood Nazist extremism and Jew hatred. Jewish self determination requires Arabs to take responsibility for themselves and their religion and culture.

Muslim reformists appear impotent and disingenuous and empty in their post October 7th cowardice and CRT-DEI coma. We cannot be morally courageous and non violent and work for peace when we endorse terror by failing to rise up and stop it BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. October 7th was terror and we must rise by any means necessary to restore order and stability. That means the allowing the IDF to take measures to retrieve hostages and eliminate terrorist mass murderers and put measures in place to prevent this happening in the future.

Arab leaders created an entire culture and religion from hatred of Jews. Arab leaders failed to instill bravery in their people possibly because they lacked it themselves. Using their people as human shields, teaching fear and hatred and isolation, forcing people to find meaning in their victimhood and feel glory in their hate and defeat rather than choose courage and triumph led to now.

You cannot achieve liberation for any human when you endorse October 7th style terrorism. We now have evidence that a lot of planning and strategy went into October 7th and the ensuing mob protests that erupted worldwide, including campus occupations — the jig is up. The Palestinian Resistance Movement plotted and planned to destroy Israel and the west. Why should I, a westerner, respond to this attack with cowardice? Calling for pacifism is cowardice, it never achieves non violence for the long term.

Why should any of us currently under Hamastinian threat agree to cowardice? Cowards allow their attackers to destroy them with a fight because they lack bravery.

When the cowardly capitulate they simply invite more bullying and terror.

Do we remember The Message of Mahatma Gandhi? The ahimsa that Gandhiji preached and practised so successfully all his life is not a quality that he associated with weakness or helplessness. Non-violence is the summit of bravery. It has no room for cowardice or even weakness. He would prefer violence to cowardice for “there is hope for a violent man to be some day non-violent, but there is none for a coward.”

cowardice cannot lead to non violence or peace

Jews have a lengthy history of persecution and oppression, under the rule of both European and Arab empires. Mizrahi and not Ashekenazi, make up the majority Jews in Israel. Mizrahi Jews come from Arab countries, which expelled Jews in a campaign to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Middle East following the birth of Israel. Arabs are not oppressed by Jews, they are historically colonisers and oppressors and ethnic cleansers of Jews. Did you know that Jews in Yemen could not wear shoes?

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Muslim Imam had power over the region and made life hard for the Yemenite Jews. They were forbidden from riding mules or donkeys, so they were forced to journey by foot. They were unable to wear new clothes or clothes in good condition, and they could not engage in monetary transactions. They were all craftsmen – mainly carpenters, masons, and smiths. — Breaking Matzo

Why should Jews agree to keep this lowly Dhimmi status for Muslims? Why should anyone agree accept inferiority to Muslims? Why does saying NO to Muslims equal oppressing Muslims? Why does self defense against Muslim terrorism and mass murder equal genocide? Why does every Jew need to become Judas for the Arab and Muslim worlds?

Writing for The Times of Israel blog in 2015 Eric Ross asks about Golda Meir, would she have been what she was without that trauma? Ross continues on, say what you will, she had guts to an almost perverse degree (not a Midwestern trait, but — if one may be permitted to suggest — very Israeli).

Golda’s zeal for her people carried her straight into the steaming chicken coops of a Galilee kibbutz. But, within a few years, she was working for the Histadrut. Then she was signing the Declaration of Independence.

She wrote: “After I signed, I cried. When I studied American history as a schoolgirl and read about those who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, I couldn’t imagine these were real people doing something real. And there I was sitting down and signing the declaration.”

I have a question.

Why don’t Lina Makboul and Leila Khaled want and celebrate for Jews what they want and celebrate for themselves? When I was on the fence about a bunch of stuff and questioning Zionism a couple years ago, around the time of the Sheikh Jarrah fufra, this value, wanting for others what I want for myself, caused me to pull back and choose Zionism over Pallywood sensationalism.

What about the sense of justice which drove a young Goldie Mabovitch to move to the British Mandate for Palestine at age 21 to fight for the Zionist cause for her people? Unlike Leila Khaled, Golda Meier did have an ancient attachment to the land known as Eretz Yisrael. In 1972 Leila Khaled was known for hijacking two planes and terrorising dozens of people by holding them hostage, she became a global icon for young people and the revolutionary-minded who believed violence could liberate them. In 1972 Golda Meir was known for being the first female Prime Minister of Israel, leading her young nation through the Munich massacre of the Israeli Olympic team by Palestinian Resistance Fighters called Black September.

I know who I choose as heroine, between these two women.

Golda Meir chose to protect her people rather than to act in cowardice and do nothing, as Gandhi’s message teaches. Golda Meir remains a heroine for many women, and men too. Ben Gurion is supposed to have stated Golda Meier was the only man in his cabinet. However, Jew haters feel offended that any Jew would dare to choose self defense. History has conditioned human society to expect Jews to be willing to suffer pogroms and endure brutal rape and torture and death, or at the very least tolerate boycotts and blood libel defamation.

I’ll end this by reminding readers that Israel has risen to be a powerful technologically advanced nation whose innovations and technological developments assists individuals and nations across the globe, and Palestine is paying terrorists to kill Jews and waging campaigns of disruption and terror worldwide. There are no Jewish refugee camps, there are Palestinian refugee camps though, there are Muslims populating refugee camps too. Rather than look after their own they choose to devote their efforts to hating and destroying Jews.

Which nation of people do you think works for non violence and peace and love?

If there’s BDS all over the world, and the people are not resisting, there will be no change. BDS helps us to continue the struggle and to isolate Israel, and then the balance of forces changes here. It’s very important for us in the international level to have more people having campaigns, because it means the narration of our story is now on that level. — Leila Khaled