The government is being urged to urgently block a pro-Palestinian activist and member of a listed terrorist organisation from entering Australia.
Leila Khaled is booked as a keynote speaker at the Socialist Alliance and Green Left’s Ecosocialism conference in Perth in June, but her entrance into Australia is being met with fierce backlash due to her activist history.
A member of the extreme Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – a listed terrorist group – Khaled rose to prominence for her involvement in attacks in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1969, Khaled played a key role in the hijacking of the Trans World Airlines Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv before attempting to hijack El Al flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York in 1970.
The Australian Jewish community has demanded Khaled be banned from entering the country, urging the government to refuse any visa application.
In a letter to Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) said refusing Khaled’s visa application would be “in the national interest”.
“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,” the letter said.
Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson joined the calls for the government to step in.
Mr Paterson said the Jewish community was “right to be concerned” and claimed Australians would be “horrified” by the prospect of the government granting a visa to Khaled.
“Someone convicted of terrorist offences, someone a member of a terrorist organisation has no business whatsoever coming to this country,” Mr Paterson told Sky News Australia’s Peta Credlin.
“The Albanese government and the Minister for Home Affairs should be able to immediately, publicly rule out the prospect that she would be welcome here under any circumstances.
“And say that if she applies for a visa, she will not be welcome because she has been invited by an organisation that’s holding a conference in Perth, she could come here if a visa is granted and I don’t think that prospect should be allowed to fester for any longer. It needs to be immediately ruled out.”
The Ecosocialism website bills the conference as “bringing together activists” from the Indo-Pacific to share “experiences in building struggles”.
In the wake of Hamas’s brutal attacks on Israel, Khaled has praised the thousands of Australians who took to the streets to protest against Israel.
She defended the horrific terrorism, and claimed the perpetrators were “freedom fighters” in an interview with the Australian independent media organisation Green Left.
“The freedom fighters did not attack ordinary people [on October 7], they attacked the military settlements. But when the borders were open, some other people took civilians,” Khaled said.
“Neither Israel nor the Western media could prove that there were massacres. The civilian hostages said they were dealt with very kindly,” she said.
“So why are they speaking like this about massacres? Just to say that the freedom fighters are terrorists.”
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