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Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Mondoweiss' (and "human rights activist") fawning interview with a terrorist

Frank Barat's byline in Mondoweiss says that he is a "Human Rights activist based in London."

Mondoweiss publishes his adulatory interview with Leila Khaled, the notorious hijacker from the 1970s, who says that Palestinian Arabs didn't use enough terror during the intifada:

Q: How are you Leila? What are you doing nowadays in Amman?

Leila Khaled: I am fine as long as I am a part of the struggle for freedom, for our right of return and for an independent State with Jerusalem as capital. I know it is not going to happen in the near future, but I am fighting nevertheless. Here in Amman, I am the chief of the department of refugees and Right of Return in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P).

...Barat: If negotiations do not bring peace to the Palestinians, what will? What should the leadership do?

LK: Resist! That’s how you achieve your rights as a People. ...

Barat: P.L.O stands for Palestine Liberation Organization. Do you think it has lost its true meaning? Bassam Shaka in 2008 told me that the P.L.O, before anything, needed to go back to its roots as a liberation movement.

LK: No liberation is achieved without resistance. My party has not changed. It has stuck to its original program. We are calling to escalate the resistance. People talk about popular resistance. It does not only mean demonstrations. Using arms is also popular. We have people who are ready to fight.

Barat: What does peaceful and non-violent resistance means for someone like yourself, who chose armed resistance as a mean for liberation?

LK: Resistance takes more than one face. It can be all kinds of resistance. Non violent and violent. I am ok with those who choose non-violence. We are not going to liberate our country by armed struggle only. Other kinds of resistance are necessary. The political one, diplomatic one, the non violent one. We need to use whatever we have got.

... We chose armed struggle. We did not achieve our goals. Then the intifada broke out and the whole world took us seriously. We gained the support of people all over the world. Still, we did not reach our goals because the leadership was not brave enough at that time to escalate the intifada, to take it to another level.

..Every year, around December, I look back at the past year and then decide to do something for the coming year. This year, I decided to quit smoking, so I did.

Barat: Mabruck!
Israel-haters don't have the slightest shame about their hypocrisy of pretending to care about "human rights" while discussing how to murder the most Israeli Jews in order to achieve their aims. Barat has not the slightest discomfort when Khaled says that blowing up buses and restaurants was not enough for her.

But at least we learned one thing from the terrorist Khaled: when "pro-Palestinian activists" say "popular resistance" it does not necessarily mean "non-violent resistance."

(h/t Gary@CiFWatch)

UPDATE: Ma'an also published the interview.