Albo Gives Visa To Radical Hamas Hijacker/ Leader, page-4

A Palestinian activist who hijacked two planes and labelled Hamas operatives responsible for the October 7 attacks “freedom fighters” is facing a push by Jewish groups to deny her an Australian visa.Leila Khaled is billed as the keynote speaker at June’s Ecosocialism event in Perth hosted by the Socialist Alliance and Green Left media outlet, but the Albanese government has given a strong signal it would block any attempt for Khaled to travel here, citing anti-terrorism laws.

The now-elderly figure, who appears holding an AK-47 in famous murals in the West Bank, is a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a hard-line Marxist group that shocked the world with airline hijackings and bombings in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Khaled helped hijack TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1969, believing Israel’s ambassador to the United States was on board.

No one was injured but the hijackers blew up the aircraft’s nose.

A year later, she attempted to hijack El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York City, threatening with a co-hijacker to detonate grenades if the pilots did not let them into the cockpit before gunshots were fired and the plane was put into a nosedive before landing.

A spokesman for Green Left said the event organisers had not yet applied for an Australian visa but were in talks about bringing Khaled to Australia. She would speak virtually if travel to Australia was not possible, the spokesman said.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry on Monday wrote to Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus urging him to block any visa application.“She was the first woman to hijack an airplane. She remains a member of the national committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an organisation which is listed under Australian sanctions laws,” the letter from Peter Wertheim and Alex Ryvchin states.“Given her criminal background and current associations, her appearance, actual or virtual, would be likely to have the effect of inciting, promoting or advocating terrorism to an Australian audience, to aggravate current social divisions and thus cause damage to social cohesion.”

A government spokeswoman said it was aware of the case and said the laws against advocating terrorism could apply even if an individual appeared online rather than in person. They also noted laws passed last month that made it a criminal offence to glorify terrorism.

“The Migration Act is clear. All people applying for visas, no matter where they’re from, are required to undergo security checks – as has been the case under all governments. The government is unable to comment on individual cases.”