In every detail, the passing of the Japanese militant Kōzō Okamoto, along with the media neglect and political indifference that accompanied his death, reveals a striking symmetry with the Palestinian cause to which he devoted his life. His fate mirrors its own arc: a descent from the very centre of global consciousness and its most vital concerns to its coldest, most ordinary periphery.
Okamoto was a communist member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) and part of a three-man team that killed 26 passengers at Israel’s main airport in 1972, after having received training in Lebanon organised by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The two other Japanese members were killed in the operation. Okamoto was injured, arrested, tried, and sentenced to three life terms in prison, but was released in a prisoner exchange deal in 1985.
His death last week marked the closing scene of a distinctive model of Palestinian struggle during the 1960s and 70s. Those drawn to it came from far-flung corners of the world, united by leftist ideologies and rhetoric, particularly in their most romantic, revolutionary, and self-assured forms. They were animated by a simple but compelling conviction: that the Palestinian cause was the axis of all injustice, the essence of contemporary global politics, and the ultimate measure of every moral inquiry.
Ideological trajectory
Okamoto’s personal and political trajectory mirrors the identity, conduct, and destinies of the organisations that attracted him, just as it did for thousands of other dreamers. He was born and raised in the mid-1940s, as Japan was experiencing its second developmental renaissance, imbued with a broadly poetic spirit in the wake of its horrific fascist era.
The young man rejected the prevailing social order of his homeland. Although he came from a middle-class family (his father was a senior educator), he failed to gain admission to the university that accepted his siblings and never completed his studies. Okamoto leapt beyond those personal circumstances and the allure of a rapidly advancing Japan to join the JRA, whose ideas and conduct blended revolutionary ideology with nihilistic violence.
Aged 25, he left for Lebanon to receive military training from Palestinian factions. From there he travelled to Germany, then to Israel, to execute a meticulously planned operation. Alongside two others, he opened fire with automatic weapons on civilians at Lod Airport (now Ben-Gurion Airport) near Tel Aviv, killing 26, many of them children and most of them foreign Christians. Dozens more were wounded.
Evolving stance
The attack reverberated across the globe. After Okamoto released, he moved between Libya and Syria before finally settling in Lebanon, where he spent three years in prison, before being granted political asylum under strict conditions. There he lived out his twilight years, afflicted by various physical and psychological ailments.
He watched the Palestinian cause experience parallel shifts. The morality of the kind of operation he undertook was now being questioned. Regardless of the political, ethical, and legal injustices suffered by the Palestinians, the world now seemed to agree that no-one had the right to commit violent acts against civilians in the name of resistance.
