Leila Khaled event planned at SFSU, disappears online
As of the time of publication, the Zoom registration link for the event, hosted by the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program (AMED) at SFSU, is still active.
By SARAH BEN-NUNleila khaled 248.88(photo credit: )
Leila Khaled, convicted terrorist and Palestinian rights advocate, was set to speak on a panel at San Francisco State University (SFSU) titled "Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine?" on April 23rd. The event was removed from Eventbrite at some point between Thursday and Friday.As of the time of publication, the Zoom registration for the event, hosted by the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program (AMED) at SFSU, is still active.Notably, the host of the event link is not SFSU, but University of California Merced. UC Merced became the subject of controversy n December, when Prof. Abbas Ghassemi, a professor of civil and environmental engineering made a series of antisemitic tweets, resulting in a university-led investigation."Why was the original event featuring Lelia Khaled so threatening that it had to be silenced and shut down?" the hosts of the event on Eventbrite asked.The original event was a September webinar with Khaled that was supposed to take place on Zoom, also hosted by SFSU. After the lobbying of lawyers and activists, it was removed by Zoom due to its "commitment" to "anti-terrorism laws" embedded in the company's terms and conditions.“In light of the speaker’s reported affiliation or membership in a US designated foreign terrorist organization, and SFSU’s inability to confirm otherwise, we determined the meeting is in violation of Zoom’s Terms of Service and told SFSU they may not use Zoom for this particular event,” Zoom said at the time.SFSU president Lynn Mahoney, in a notice to the students, said she "disagree[d]" with Zoom's decision, and was "disappointed" by it.Khaled, 77, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is most notably the mastermind behind the 1969 hijacking of the Tel Aviv-bound TWA Flight 840, as well as the Dawson Field hijackings of 1970. The hijackings were done to propel the release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails, Khaled has insisted over the years. She is also behind a failed attempted hijacking of an El Al plane.The PFLP is designated as a terrorist group by Israel, the US, the EU, and Canada. During the Second Intifada, the PLFP was involved and responsible for terrorist attacks and suicide bombings.Khaled was later released as part of a prisoner exchange after spending only a few days in jail. The September event was organized in part by Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi, who was accused of fostering a climate of hate towards pro-Israel students on campus, according to an Algemeiner report. Abdulhadi was slated to speak at the April 23rd event as well.Khaled was born in Haifa in 1944 and fled with her family on April 13, 1948, when Israel's neighboring Arab countries attacked upon the declaration of independence.The event was described as a "roundtable... explor[ing] the set of questions that center Palestine at the heart of discussion on free speech and academic freedom."The goal of the even was to "work toward decolonizing the curriculum" and change the narrative of conversation around Palestine in the world of academia.In an interview in 2014, Khaled was asked by a reporter at +972 Magazine how she would have responded if someone had been seriously injured during one of her hijackings. She said that she would be "very sorry" but that "no one had a heart attack or anything.”"We, as a people, have the right to resist by all means," she insisted to the reporter.Khaled resides today in Amman, Jordan.
