Kill Khalid
Mossad's Failed Hit ... and the Rise of Hamas
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
September 1997: In an Amman street in broad daylight five menclaiming to be Canadian tourists accost a Palestinian and inject a mysterious chemical into his ear. Within 48 hours it should kill him, leaving no trace. The perfect political assassination. In fact, the assailants were Mossad agents and their target was Khalid Mishal, at that time head of Hamas's political bureau in Jordan. But after 48 hours Mishal was not dead. Instead, the prime minister of Israel, the president of the United States and the king of Jordan were locked in intense negotiations to save his life.
Kill Khalidunveils one of the most bizarre assassination attempts in the last quarter century and ultimately follows its participants as they grapple with the unforeseen outcome of this drama. In a headlong narrative - with high-speed car chases, negotiated prisoner exchanges, and an international scandal that threatened to destabilise the entire region - acclaimed reporter Paul McGeough uses unprecedented extensive interviews with Khalid Mishal himself and the key players in Amman, Jerusalem and Washington, to tell the definitive, inside story of the rise of Hamas, in whose hands the future of the Israel-Palestine conflict now firmly rests.
'This is that rare and most exciting of books - a serious political history that reads like a fast-paced thriller. The cast includes presidents, politicians, spies, diplomats and murderers who play out their destinies against a background of conspiracy and intrigue.' - Phillip Knightley
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McGeough (Manhattan to Baghdad) offers a meticulously researched, if in places excessively detailed treatment of Palestinian political history. Based on interviews conducted with key players and Hamas leader Khalid Mishal, the narrative focuses on the attempted assassination in 1997 of Mishal by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, and examines how the bungled poisoning catalyzed Hamas previously marginalized and labeled a terrorist group to rise to power. The brazen attempt on Mishal's life in broad daylight while he was taking his sons for a haircut in Amman, Jordan, galvanized the movement; Mishal became a household name in the Middle East and Hamas members called him "the martyr who did not die." By 2004, Hamas's refusal to abandon the use of suicide bombers turned international opinion against the organization, but by this time even Jimmy Carter had visited Mishal, and Arafat's PLO had been pushed aside as the sole representative of the Palestinian cause. This is the definitive chronicle of the Middle East crisis during the Clinton years and in the post-9/11 era.
