Talking pictures

They say one picture is worth a thousand words.

Further to my last post, I received information about the images Stephen Sizer considered worthy of uploading to his website. The murals and images on his blog are of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terror group founded in 1967 by George Habash.

The PFLP is guided by Marxism-Leninism principles and Habash considered the ‘liberation’ of Palestine an integral part of the world Communist revolution.

The organisation advocates armed insurrection and has carried out media-oriented attacks, particularly the hijacking of planes, to bring the Palestinian cause to public attention.

In July 1968, PFLP operatives hijacked an El Al plane. In September 1970, the PFLP hijacked three commercial airliners and blew them up. In 2001, the organisation assassinated Israel’s Minister of Tourism, Rehavam Ze’evi, in Jerusalem.

A suicide bombing in February 2002 left three Israeli civilians dead and 25 wounded, while a suicide bombing on Christmas Day 2005 killed three Israelis.

The lady with the gun is Leila Khaled (pictured), the ‘poster girl of Palestinian militancy.’ A former PFLP plane hijacker and now a PA politician, on 29 August 1969 Khaled was part of the team that hijacked TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Athens, diverting it to Damascus.

It is interesting that a British vicar who is one of the organisers of the Christ at the Checkpoint conference, an event ostensibly dedicated to peace and reconciliation, feels comfortable about posting images which are diametrically opposed to the publicised aims of CATC on his website.

It is also curious, given the avowed purpose of CATC, that Bethlehem's mayor, who is a PFLP member, should be granted the honour of presenting the opening address at the conference.

As our transatlantic cousins say: ‘Go figure.’