Sarah Irving
Pluto Press, 2012
As one of the first of
the Revolutionary Lives series of critical biographies published by
Pluto Press, Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation
couldn't have chosen a better focus. The book opens with the image of
Khaled preparing to board and hijack flight TWA 840 on August 29,
1969; however, far more time is spent on the full span of her life,
from fleeing her home as a four year old during the Nakba of 1948 to
her years of work on the Palestinian National Council and in the
General Union of Palestinian Women after her involvement in two
hijackings.
In many ways, Leila
Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation is as much the story of
the history of the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the role
the left – particularly the role the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine – played in it, as it is the story of
Khaled's dedicated and tireless career.
Sarah Irving's work is
a must-read for anyone wishing to study Khaled's life; the primary
source for many of the sections, particularly those beyond the
notorious hijackings of 1969 and 1970, are a week of interviews that
Irving conducted with Khaled in her Amman home in 2008 and subsequent
communications. These interviews shed light on a variety of topics
which have been poorly documented elsewhere, such as the role played
by the organised women's movement amongst the Palestinian refugees in
the neighbouring countries of Jordan and Lebanon; Irving compares
them with the occasionally differing records of events held by others
on the Palestinian left or in other published accounts to tease out
the different narratives of the resistance's history.
Khaled's comments on
the jailing or resignation of cadres of the Popular Front in the
1990s and the rise of Hamas as the alternative to the dominant Fatah
leadership, as well as her positive assessment of the role the Arab
Spring revolutions and the consequent March 15 movement in Palestine,
also show her as a Marxist thinker still firmly grounded in the
Palestinian struggle of today. She raises the key demand of the
Palestinian left today – reconciliation of Hamas and Fatah, writing
that the national split has "weakened the Palestinians
(vis-a-vis) Israel, and also weakened Palestinian human rights on the
international level."
The biography also
draws together a range of perspectives on Khaled and fellow "women
revolutionary fighters", and the barriers of perception they had
to break through as "good Arab women." While still
affirming Khaled's perspective that "[women] are under
occupation, and in that we are equal in oppression with men... [but]
at the same time there is social oppression, so women participate...
in the national struggle and also in the social struggle,"
Irving considers feminist critiques of women's role within national
liberation movements and references the different perspectives
advanced by Palestinian women on the subject.
Khaled finishes on the
future – despite the many setbacks for the movement she has lived
through Khaled insists the conflict will "work itself out".
Despite her status as a symbol of resistance to injustice, her humour
and optimism makes Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation
an inspiring read – and one well worth picking up for any supporter
of the Palestinian cause.
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