JEWISH WORLD

By DAN PINE T he recent announcement that Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled had been invited to speak at San Francisco State Uni- versity caught the eye of Uri Bar- Lev, an Israeli retiree just shy of 90. He has crossed paths with Khaled before. Fifty years ago this month, Bar- Lev was the El Al pilot who foiled Khaled and an accomplice during a violent midair hijacking attempt on a flight from Amsterdam to New York. According to the Times of Israel, he is the only pilot ever to do so. Khaled was set to join a Sept. 23 online panel discussion hosted by S.F. State’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies program (AMED). The Anti-Def- amation League, San Francisco Hillel and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council have condemned the decision to allow the member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.- designated terrorist group, to partic- ipate in a university-sanctioned event. [Editor’s note: Zoom, the popular video chat program, can- celed her appearance, and though her appearance was picked up by YouTube, that too was canceled 20 minutes into the broadcast, both on grounds of ethics.] Today, an uncontrite Khaled, 76, sits on the Palestinian National Council. Described in AMED’s event promotion as a “Palestinian feminist, militant and leader,” she frequently does receive speaking engagements, such as the one at S.F. State. Bar-Lev isn’t having it. “In America, if you want Leila Khaled to speak, [then] you forgot the awful pain you had in 9/11 by terror,” he said from his home in Israel. He believes she is unrepen- tant for her actions. In a 2014 interview with Mon- doweiss , Khaled said, “We cannot say that nonviolent resistance alone will achieve our rights.” And as recently as 2016, she told +972 magazine that she did not see her actions as terrorism. “I am a victim of oppression and occupation,” Khaled said. “We, as a people, have the right to resist by all means.” B ar-Lev is among the dwindling number of Israelis who have lived through the entire span of modern Israeli history. Born in 1932 on a moshav , Bar-Lev fought during the Israeli War of Indep- endence in 1948 when he was just 16. He later joined the Israel Air Force, flying his last military mis- sion during the 1956 Arab-Israeli Sinai War. Soon after he became a pilot for El Al, Israel’s national air- line. Starting in the late 1960s, pro- Palestinian militants began commit- ting terrorist acts, including hijack- ing Israeli commercial airliners and planes traveling to or from Israel, bombing a Jerusalem supermarket in 1969, and slaying Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. On Aug. 29, 1969, the Haifa- born Khaled was one of two PFLP members to hijack TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv. She com- mandeered the plane to Amman, Jordan, where it was blown up. No hostages were killed. Eleven months later, on Sept. 6, Outmaneuvering A Hijacker Israeli pilot on overcoming Leila Khaled continued on page 23 They had shot and gravely wounded an El Al flight attendant and had put a gun to the head of another. 12 JEWISH WORLD • OCTOBER 16-22, 2020 REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK Retired El Al pilot Uri Bar-Lev (center) being interviewed by Roy Stein (right) and Hallel Silverman (left) of StandWithUs about his run-in with hijacker Khaled.