Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2009, pages 46-47

New York City and Tri-State News

Author Paul McGeough on Israel’s Botched Attempt to Assassinate Khalid Mishal

By Jane Adas

PAUL MCGEOUGH, an Australian award-winning foreign correspondent, happened to be in New York on 9/11. Ever since, he told his audience at New York’s Alwan for the Arts, he has been pursuing the story of the “war on terror.” The occasion was to introduce his third book on the topic, the superb Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas. The subject came to the author by chance, when friends in Jordan talked of how wonderfully King Hussein had handled Mossad’s 1997 assassination attempt. Intrigued, McGeough explored further. An Amman journalist approached Mishal on the author’s behalf to arrange a meeting. McGeough was told to wait in Amman for a phone call. Two months later the call came, and the meeting took place in Damascus. Mishal agreed to cooperate without imposing conditions, not even Hamas vetting. Kill Khalid tells the story of Hamas and the dramatic history of the Palestinian people through Mishal’s life. Readers who enjoy John LeCarre’s thrillers will relish this book.

McGeough said the number of attempts Israel, other Arab leaders, and the U.S. have made to destroy Hamas is remarkable. He called them “wonderful blunders.” In the 1980s, Israel used the Muslim Brotherhood as a foil against Arafat and Fatah, allowing its members to set up clinics, mosques, and a university while preventing Fatah from doing anything. In 1992 Israel deported key Hamas leaders to Lebanon, where the deportees set up an open university and were tutored by Hezbollah.

In 1997, after a crackdown by Israel and Arafat, Hamas was almost finished—but gained new life and a new leader from the Mossad’s bungled operation. King Hussein, after signing an unpopular treaty with Israel and with half his population Palestinian refugees, was in an awkward position. He told President Bill Clinton that if Mishal died, it would be the end of the peace process. Along with insisting that Israel provide the antidote to the poison injected in Mishal, Hussein demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners, including Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Then-Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, with plausible deniability not an option, had no choice but to comply in order to ensure the release of the Mossad agents captured in Amman.

McGeough jumped forward to 2005, when the U.S. was concerned about Hamas’ decision to run candidates for the Legislative Council. Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas told Washington that he had no authority to stop them, but assured the White House and State Departmen that after Fatah won the elections, he would be able to control Hamas. Instead, of course, Hamas won. In response, Fatah, Israel and the U.S. moved immediately to isolate Hamas and freeze its funds. The same trio, along with Egypt and Jordan, funded, set up and trained a Fatah army, but Hamas easily defeated it in Gaza in June 2007.

After error upon error, McGeough noted that enough interested people—like former Mossad Director Efraim Halevy, Britain’s Tony Blair, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker—are now saying, “maybe we got it wrong, we need to deal with Hamas.” The EU is considering a petition to remove Hamas from its terrorist list. McGeough further insisted that Hamas is not a puppet of either Syria or Iran.

McGeough maintains that Hamas won the 2006 elections on the strength of its service to the community. Fatah, run as a one-man show in the classic Arab model of patronage, failed because it couldn’t even organize itself internally. Hamas showed another way to govern, using the strength of democracy, and does so in exemplary fashion. McGeough acknowledged that Hamas’ 1997 charter is an ugly document. In 2005 Mishal appointed a committee to review it, but after the world rejected the election results, put the review on hold.

When McGeough met with Mishal this past March, he said, he found a changed atmosphere. He had to wait in line behind Italian and Greek parliamentarians and other political delegations. Mishal told him then that Hamas would not renounce violence and recognize Israel until it is safe to give up those cards, but that Hamas will accept any peace endorsed by a referendum of the Palestinian people, including a two-state solution.

Hooman Majd Discusses Iran

Hooman Majd, the son of a diplomat and grandson of an ayatollah, now lives in the U.S., where he has served as translator for two Iranian presidents: Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. To clear up American misconceptions about Iran he wrote The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran.

In Princeton in April to address the topic, “Can Iran Change?” Majd began by characterizing the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war as a defining factor for Iranians—although one the West has largely forgotten about. That war affected nearly every Iranian, he said, and they all know who supplied Iraq with weapons, including chemical ones. Iranians view this as a real grievance that the U.S. has yet to address, Majd asserted.

President Barack Obama acknowledged Iran’s great cultural heritage in his address on the Iranian New Year, but Obama also said, if Iran behaves, the U.S. will accept you; if not there will be consequences. This was insulting, Majd said, and Iranians no longer accept that “old world order.” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s response to Obama was, “You change and we will change, too.” Majd expected a “wow” response to that, he said, since Obama is all about change. So far, however, nothing.

Iranians are happy about Obama’s election, Majd continued, but still hesitant because of very bad memories of the last eight years. After 9/11, President Mohammad Khatami was the first Muslim foreign leader to express condolences. Iranians held American flags at candlelight vigils—and did not burn them. In Afghanistan Iran supported Washington against the Taliban and helped the U.S. with the Northern Alliance. But the moment President George W. Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union address, included Iran in the “Axis of Evil,” then-President Khatami knew the reform movement he had championed was finished. Iranian hard-liners pointed out that reformers had helped the U.S., which then threatened to bomb them.

In 2003 Iran produced a document delivered via the Swiss embassy to the Bush administration, which rejected it for not being on official stationary and chided the Swiss for interfering. This, Majd asserted, was yet another affront to Iran. On top of that, Congress appropriated $25 million for regime change in Iran; Bush himself acknowledged that the U.S. was carrying out covert activities, including sabotage, in Iran; and the U.S. is holding three Iranian diplomats in Iraq without charge. Perhaps the question should be “Can America change?”

What Iranians want, he stressed, is not to be anyone’s client state, as is Egypt. Iranian history over the last century has been filled with intrigues by great powers that tell Iran how to sell oil and which arms to buy, he noted. Like Obama, Iran wants energy independence and its own source of nuclear fuel. Moreover, Iran has the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—to which it, but not India, Pakistan or Israel is a signatory—to enrich its own uranium. The U.S. cannot deny Iran that right simply because Iran is not pro-Israel. If Iran were dependent on the U.S. for enriched uranium, Majd explained, Tehran would have to watch its votes in the U.N. lest the U.S. cut off Iran’s electricity.

Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area.