The Martyr Who Did Not Die
By REVIEW BY GREG MYRE
Sunday, March 8, 2009

KILL KHALID

The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise

of Hamas

By Paul McGeough

New Press. 477 pp. $26.95

Actuarial tables are not kind to the leaders of Hamas. The Israeli security forces reserve a special fury for the radical Islamic group, and it’s tough to be taken seriously as a Hamas leader unless you can prove that the Israelis tried to kill you at least once.

The group’s most notorious bomb maker was killed by an exploding cellphone in 1996. Its quadriplegic founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was in his wheelchair on his way home from a mosque when an Israeli missile struck him down in 2004. This past New Year’s Day, a one-ton Israeli bomb flattened the apartment building that housed Hamas firebrand Nizar Rayyan, killing him, all four of his wives and 11 of their children.

Given this history, Khalid Mishal, a key figure in Hamas since the group was founded two decades ago, can consider himself very lucky indeed. His brush with death came on the streets of Amman, Jordan, in 1997, when an Israeli Mossad agent squirted an exotic poison in his ear. But the would-be assassin and an accomplice were quickly chased down by Mishal’s driver, his bodyguard and some passersby. Outraged that the attack took place on Jordanian soil, King Hussein demanded the antidote from Israel as part of the price for releasing the Mossad agents. Under U.S. pressure, the Israelis reluctantly complied.

This episode made Mishal an instant legend within Hamas. He became a martyr in a group that reveres them and did so without the inconvenience of dying. In “Kill Khalid,” Australian journalist Paul McGeough uses the botched assassination as the jumping-off point for a timely and thorough examination of Hamas, highlighting the ways in which Israel has intentionally and unintentionally aided its rise.

Mishal’s near-death experience has been well reported in previous books and articles, and this book runs the risk of being as stale as month-old hummus. But in the circular nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the same characters keep coming back around, and this 12-year-old drama couldn’t be more relevant today.

Binyamin Netanyahu was the Israeli prime minister who authorized the attempt on Mishal’s life. It proved to be a huge embarrassment, and though Hamas wasn’t part of the negotiations, the reckless Israeli action was one of a thousand cuts that drained the blood out of the peace process that had begun so hopefully with the 1993 Oslo accords.

So what’s new? Well, Netanyahu’s Likud party finished a close second in Israel’s February elections, and he has been trying to form a coalition government with himself as prime minister. If he succeeds, his most immediate security concern will be Hamas . . . led by Khalid Mishal.

Back in 1997, President Bill Clinton intervened to calm the Jordanians and contain the political damage from the attempted assassination. This past week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured the region and met with Netanyahu in hopes of restarting negotiations. The cast may be familiar, but one huge difference between then and now is that Hamas is much more powerful, which will greatly complicate any peace effort.

McGeough documents how, two decades ago, Israel encouraged the development of Hamas by allowing it to establish schools, health clinics and other social services. Israel’s thinking at the time was that Hamas could serve as a religious counterweight to Yasser Arafat’s secular Fatah movement and splinter Palestinian loyalties. But once it put down roots, Hamas quickly expanded its role, moving from peace-process spoiler in the 1990s, to suicide-bombing assembly line at the beginning of this decade, to rulers of the ravaged Gaza Strip for the past three years.

For such a key figure, Mishal is not well known, even to Palestinians. He was just 11 when his family fled the West Bank in the wake of the 1967 war, and he last set foot there in 1975. After bouncing around the Middle East, he now maintains a relatively low profile in Damascus, where he lives in a guarded compound reserved mostly for Syrian VIPs and foreign diplomats. Yet as much as anyone else in the region today, Mishal is linked to all the key players. He tends to surface at vital moments — such as Israel’s assault on Gaza in December and January — and McGeough makes excellent use of him to explain the cross-currents that make the Middle East so messy.

To begin with, Mishal must negotiate the friction between Hamas “insiders,” the leaders based in Gaza, and the group’s “outsiders,” exiles such as himself. He also figures prominently in the tensions that pit Hamas against Fatah. He is a full-throated advocate of suicide bombings who issued predictably hard-line statements during the recent fighting in Gaza. Yet on those occasions when Hamas turns to diplomacy, Mishal pops up in Egypt or Saudi Arabia to guide the Hamas delegation.

He depends on Syria for his security and has links in Lebanon to Hezbollah, a group Hamas has long studied and emulated. Mishal is also on good terms with Hamas’s most important patron, Iran, which supplies cash and trains Hamas militants. In short, it’s hard to figure out the Mideast jigsaw puzzle without understanding where he fits in.

As a reporter, I covered Hamas for years, and it was always tricky gauging Mishal’s influence. His exhortations to strike at Israel certainly resonated with the radical youths in Gaza, yet at times it seemed that his perch in exile left him out of day-to-day decision-making by Hamas leaders on the ground.

But Israel has systematically killed many of those leaders, and Mishal’s prominence has grown by process of elimination. McGeough makes a strong case that, even from afar, Mishal is deeply involved in daily events in Gaza. The author was with Mishal in his Damascus compound in September 2007, when Al-Jazeera was broadcasting scenes of Hamas security forces beating Fatah protesters in Gaza. An exasperated Mishal spoke by phone to the Hamas security chief in Gaza and told him to ease up.

Far too many earnest, lumbering books on the Middle East propose recycled versions of the path to peace. McGeough doesn’t offer a solution to the conflict. But he provides a highly instructive account of how Hamas emerged as a potent force and why its faithful honor Mishal as the “martyr who did not die.”

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© 2009 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030602019_pf.html

Well I didn’t start the blog about this issue but as I was thinking of a possibility of an attack on Iran from USA, it will do a lot of opposite things that USA wouldn’t want. What am I talking about, well if GW decides to attack Iran that will result in the unthinkable i.e. Unite the Muslims.

Think about this, this will be the platform for Muslims, Sunni or Shia to come together to condemn USA. This will also bring them together to form anti US alliances in the Middle East which is exactly what the USA doesn’t want. So I guess Mr. Bush now you are at a cross roads, you have to protect Israel but can’t afford a united Muslim nations. The US policy and officials have to walk a very fine line on this issue. Israel and US strategic interests go way back and so does the distrust between Shia Sunnis. If the attack does happen, this will push Muslim to come together who won’t care if they are Shia or Sunni but their common ground will be hatred of US Policy.
Then it won’t be hard to imagine people like Zarqavi getting training and resources from Iran, they will open flood gates of problems for the Middle East rather than just USA.

Countries like Pakistan can get trouble and might not be a favorable please for a US friendly government. If Iran becomes hostile then Pakistan has to worry about unfriendly countries from most of its borders, they include Iran, India and Afghanistan. Currently internal problems in Pakistan are causing for them to rethink their policies, Balouch and NWFP problems and Army’s involvement is causing an ever deteriorating problem from getting stable to getting worse. In such scenarios Pakistan might not be able to handle another fiasco in the Middle East, i.e. Iran.

So I guess we can hope and pray that nothing like that happens. Inshallah :). But Bush will have to keep a cool mind and try to work with Iran.

One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that why interfere in some countries internal Affairs, Ohh well Afghanistan is already an American run country then they sure can. But if they preach Democracy and claim that Afghanistan is a democratic state then I guess they need to let the course of the law take its shape. I read quite a few blogs online about how savage is Islam and all that crap.

The God fearing Christians forget that it was them only who were part of the killing of thousands of people in the name of religion during the Crusades and Inquisitions. I never question the law of God as it has been in Islam. I would never do that and any respecting Muslim would also not question it. It is the law. If Abdur Rahman apostated and is proclaiming his faith just to incite people then he should be returned to Europe where he came from.

We need to realize that the case has been brought by his own family in the first place. It is not the government who arrested him just for that but he is the one who told repeatedly that he was a Christian and brought it on his own. It is like the case in USA right now. The law states if Zacarias Mossavi is responsible for the deaths of people then he should be put to death. No one will question that because the law states that. So in an Islamic country the law states that if a Muslim apostates then he is dealt according to the process.

It is funny we forget that US’s close allies like Saudi Arabia and quite a few of the rich oil states don’t allow preaching of any religion. Anyone caught preaching any other religion other than Islam is put in jail. So why be surprised about this afghan case. Hey if worse comes to worse, US can always use its covert ops teams to extract the dude.

Abdul Rahman

1. Shia Sunni:
Very evident it is happening in Iraq, Pakistan and quite a few places. Shias hate Sunnis and vice versa. It is also happening online, just visit any community related to shias on Orkut or sunnis, you will find evidence of such battles.

2. West and Muslim World
This one is also very clear with Iraq, Muslims fighting West’s presence in Iraq, also in Pakistan, Iran resisting US Pressure on Nuclear ambitions and so on. This was is not about religion but clash between values and societies, Their civilizations and cultures.

3. Islam and Christianity
This war has been on for quite a while. The influx of missionaries who try to convert people to Christianity and Muslims following suit. sometimes it erupts in bloody conflict like Lebanon or Nigeria.

4. India Pakistan
This is a proxy war which has been going on for a long time. With the Afghan conflict out of hand Pakistani still wage this undeclared war until God knows Who.

5. Saudi/Pakistan and Iran
To counter shia Islam the sunnis countries try to fight the shia Islam in Iran and now maybe Iraq. Iran has been sponsoring shia militancy in Pakistan for quite a while. Saudi Arabia has supported Sunni militant groups in Pakistan for a long time.

6. China and India
These two powers have had clashed once and now fight unconventional wars between each other. China supports Pakistan in its efforts to match India’s might and china also achieves its hidden agenda also against India at the same time.

7. America and China
The war of economy and communism vs. capitalism goes on. China is being fought now by helping India.

8. Israel and Muslim World
The centuries old conflict with Jerusalem in the middle and Israeli occupancy also happening at the same time. Israel has USA on its side and non one can beat them economically or militarily.

Mirza whatever came in the late 1800s on the request of the british to counter and split the muslims in the south asia. They are declared non-Muslims in the Constitution of Pakistan. They are declred non muslims by Muslim scholars and are not allowed to enter the holy places in Saudi Arabia.

More information on these people can be found at this link
http://www.irshad.org/qadianism.php