Leila Khaled, Hijacker | Full documentary - by Lina Makboul (2005)

Leila Khaled was the first woman ever to hijack an aircraft. As a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, she hijacked an American Boeing 707 in 1969. This is a story told by a young Palestinian who grew up in Sweden. What made Leila Khaled become one of the world’s most famous terrorists and the most famous Palestinian woman of all? What kind of a person hijacks an airplane? The family of Leila Khaled fled to Lebanon in fear of the armed Jewish group Stern Gang. This paramilitary unit first came to Palestine after WW2 to prepare the territory for those who had survived the Nazi concentration camps. While the persecution of one nation in Europe ended, the oppression of another began in the Middle East. At the age of twenty-four, Leila Khaled joined a commando unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In 1969 she hijacked an airplane full of civilians in Rome, threatening to blow it up. In the end, no one died, but the world press became interested in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. For most Palestinians—at home and in exile—she became an icon, something more permanent than a reflection in the mirror. Her charisma also influenced the director, belonging to a younger generation, who went on a journey to meet her childhood idol at a time when she also began to question her earlier views. The question remains whether Leila's act did in fact damage, rather than improve, the situation in Palestine.