“You have to stay in the square, in Taksim, until the government accepts your demands. Don’t leave it. [Stay] there with your peaceful demonstration, your peaceful strike, sit-in. And I call upon women to join it on a wide scale everywhere, in the squares in different cities, not only in Taksim. Long live the people’s struggle for their rights!”
Tag Archives: Leila Khaled
As’ad Abukhalil on Leila Khaled and Syria
[object Window]
Aquila-Style feature on Leila Khaled
Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation featured in the latest issue of Aquila-Style magazine, in an article by Arwa Aburawa:
Palestine launches for Leila Khaled biography
Details are here for launch events for the Leila Khaled biography in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem on the 7th, 8th and 9th of July respectively. All organised by that Palestinian Jerusalem institution, the Educational Bookshop.
Reviewed in the Daily Star, Lebanon
The Daily Star, 14th June 2012.
Ultimately, the biographer’s major accomplishment is to remake a decades-old revolutionary icon into a living, breathing woman.
Yes, Khaled is an activist and a political voice on contemporary Palestinian affairs and her commitment to her cause has endured. Her wit and bloody-mindedness in the face of occupation have not lessened an iota. In Irving’s portrayal, Khaled is a wife and mother faced with the challenges of raising a family, but one with the additional concerns of a Palestinian refugee and former militant.
That Irving has found space in this light volume for extensive exploration of the evolution of women’s rights within the Palestinian resistance is testament to the author’s economy with words.
“Leila Khaled – Icon of Palestinian Liberation” is an ideal read for those seeking a brief introductory account that neither glorifies or vilifies its subject nor dumbs down the complexity of the context in which she lived and worked.
Read the full article here.
New reviews…
New reviews of Leila Khaled biography:
Palestine Chronicle, 29th May 2012
Lipstick Socialist, 7th June 2012
Sugar Street Review, 7th June 2012
Reviewed on Electronic Intifada
Electronic Intifada, 23rd May 2012
Known primarily for the two aircraft hijacking operations she was involved with in 1969 and 1970, Khaled has since then become a major PFLP activist and leader in her own right. It may come as a surprise, then, that before the publication of Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation, there was no biography of her (apart from an autobiography in the 1970s). The Electronic Intifada contributor Sarah Irving has set out to right this wrong, and achieves it ably with this exciting little book, newly published by Pluto Press as part of its “Revolutionary Lives” series.
A major strength of the book is that its based mostly on primary source material: interviews with Khaled herself at her home in Amman, Jordan. Irving also dove into the archives, reading seemingly everything there was to be found in English on Khaled.
Full article here.
Leila Khaled mural on the Apartheid Wall at Bethlehem
A rather magnificent mural painted on the Separation Wall near Bethlehem – photo courtesy of an Australian friend working out there with EAPPI:
First coverage of Leila Khaled biography
From Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 6th May 2012
الكتاب على صغر حجمه مهم لانه يحكي قصة ليلى خالد معتمدا على شهادتها وصوتها يحضر في ثنايا السرد، ولعل قصة العملية الفاشلة وموت باتريك من اكثر المشاهد اثارة للحزن وحبسا للانفاس، فهنا التعاطف العالمي والموت في ارض غريبة بعيدة عن الوطن، والموت جائعا. كتاب مثير وغني ومفيد للقارىء باللغة الانكليزية.
Full article here.
Manchester launch for Leila Khaled biography
And in a move to break with the usual London-centrism of the publishing industry etc etc… the first launch event for the Leila Khaled biography will be in Manchester at Blackwell’s University Bookshop on Oxford Road, from 7pm on Thursday 24th May. All welcome. More details here.