By Angela Quintal
Palestinian activist and former hijacker Leila Khaled will arrive in South Africa on Monday with a message for the government: "It's time for sanctions against Israel".
She will visit the country for the first time to attend the Encounters Film Festival in Johannesburg and Cape Town, where a documentary about her called, Hijacker: The Life of Leila Khaled, will be screened.
Among the politicians she may meet is Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad, who this week rejected calls from Cosatu and other organisations for Pretoria to break diplomatic relations with Israel and implement sanctions.
She is also hoping to meet former president Nelson Mandela, who she describes as "our great hero".
Speaking from Amman, Jordan, Khaled said she had just spent the afternoon protesting against Israel's latest incursions into Gaza, as well as the attacks on southern Lebanon in retaliation for the capture and killing of soldiers by Hezbollah.
"It's my message and my people's message to South Africa: It is time for sanctions against the apartheid regime in Israel. As the world succeeded in supporting the struggle of the South Africans against the apartheid regime, it is time to punish Israel for its terrorist acts against our people and now its widening attack on the Lebanese too."
She said she agreed with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that President Thabo Mbeki should play a role in the peace process, given South Africa's moral authority.
Khaled, a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is diplomatic about South Africa's support for a two-state solution, as given that she rejects it outright and does not recognise the state of Israel.
"We are looking for a democratic state in Palestine, where all Jews and Arabs, can live equally and on an equal basis."On the Hamas government in the Palestinian territories, Khaled says she respects the choice of her people.
"I am not in Hamas, but I respect my people. They chose Hamas and we have to accept it. It is not up to others to tell us who to choose. This is not democracy."
She believes her people can learn from SA's reconciliation process should the day arrive when Arab and Jew will live side by side in Palestine.
"When we go back to our homeland, it will mean that we will have to reconcile with our occupiers."
Despite the years of struggle, she says she has not lost hope. "We will go back to our country. If not our generation, then the second generation, but we have to pave the way - I have never lost hope. I am very sure that one day we will go back to Palestine."
Khaled, who hijacked a plane in 1969 and then again in 1970 because she wanted to put the Palestinian issue on the international agenda, believes it is no longer a legitimate form of protest.
"We felt that it achieved a goal and we stopped it voluntarily. Those hijackings were very clean, we did not hurt anybody."
However, Khaled is not about to condemn suicide bombings in Israel, although she does not believe that it "is a strategic way of struggle".
"We are not only protesting, we are struggling for our humanity. What do you expect from a youngster when his house is demolished, his father is killed, he is not allowed to work or go to school? He'd go and do it, because the Israeli's have made life hell for us."