Honoring a Terrorist? South Africans Suggest a Controversial Street Name

Israel Daily News got a personal note from opposition president Gayton McKenzie in South Africa. He texted us an article last night about how his party, the Patriotic Alliance party is refusing to allow a street in South Africa to be named Leila Khaled drive. Now in the article he says diplomatically that there are many local heroes more worthy of having a street named after them. Leila Khaled is a woman terrorist belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. She and her team hijacked a TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv and diverted it to Damascus, Syria. Some reports suggest that she believed Israeli ambassador to the United States Yitzhak Rabin would be on board though he was not. Yitzhak Rabin went on to become the prime minister of Israel. No one was injured during this hijacking, but after the passengers got off the aircraft, hijackers blew up the nose of the plane. She later had so many plastic surgeries done to her face in order to conceal her identity that she was able to do another hijacking. 

This is the woman South Africans want to name a street after. And the latest presidential candidate for this role, Gayton McKenzie, is saying no to this. He and his entire party say no.