Why Khaled Mashaal Is Relevant:
Khaled Mashaal is the political leader of Hamas, the Sunni Islamist Palestinian organization, and head of its office in Damascus, Syria, from where he operates. Mashaal has taken responsibility for numerous suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.As long as Hamas is backed by wide popular and electoral support among Palestinians, Mashaal will have to be a party to any peace agreement--not only between Israelis and Palestinians, but among Palestinians themselves.
Hamas' chief rival among Palestinians is Fatah, the party once controlled by Yaser Arafat and now controlled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mashaal's Origins:
Khaled Mashaal was born outside Ramallah, the Palestinian city in the West Bank, in 1956, into a conservative, religious family. Israel's 1967 invasion and occupation of the West Bank forced the family to flee to Kuwait. Smart, engaged and engaging, Mashaal became a student leader at Kuwait University where he studied physics and founded the List of the Islamic Right, a student organization aimed against Yaser Arafat's more moderate but more corrupt Fatah.After the first Gulf War over Kuwait in 1990, Mashaal moved to Jordan and began founding with others what came to be known as Hamas.
Israel's Assassination Attempts:
In 1997 two Israeli Mossad agents traveling on Canadian passports in Amman, Jordan, injected poison in his ear. The assassination attempt failed when the would-be assassins were captured and King Hussein of Jordan, enraged at Israel, demanded that it turn over an antidote to save Mashaal—which Israel did. Jordan and Israel three years earlier had signed a peace treaty. The assassination attempt risked unraveling the relationship. To prevent the unraveling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu agreed to release from prison Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, in exchange for the two Mossad agents.How Mashaal Became Hamas' Leader Through Elimination:
Israelis assassinated Yassin in 2004 (along with his bodyguard and nine by-standers), and one month later assassinated his successor, Abdel Aziz Ranisi (along with his bodyguard and his son), by the same means—missiles fired from helicopter gunships. Ranisi’s assassination made Mashaal the head of Hamas by default. Israel wasn’t finished: On July 5, 2006, Israeli F-16 fighter jets violated Syrian air space all the way to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s summer palace in Latakia, where they almost grazed the rooftop. The jets were sending a message. Israel wanted Syria to stop sheltering Mashaal.What Mashaal Believes:
Of Israel, Mshaal said in 2006: "We shall never recognize the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice."Mashaal's terms for a truce would entail Israel retreating to its pre-1967 borders and allowing Palestinian refugees' return.
