A President and a Terror Boss

President Jimmy Carter knew he would anger Israeli leaders and the Bush Administration when he agreed to meet Khalid Meshal, a senior Hamas leader the Israelis once tried to assassinate.
The moment Pres. Carter announced he planned to meet Meshal in Syria while on a trip to Israel and Arab countries, denunciations came swift and fast from Washington and Tel Aviv, including public condemnation from Sec. of State, Condoleezza Rice. Pres. Carter’s response was that his mission was designed to encourage Hamas to join with Fatah in a dialogue with Israel to find a peaceful solution to the Palestinian question. He stressed that to play a meaningful role he could not set preconditions by refusing to meet men like Meshal. In Arab nations, there was no criticism of his trip, or his decision to talk to the Hamas chief. In Europe, there was praise for his willingness to talk to all sides in the Palestinian dispute.
Meshal is the point man for Hamas throughout the Arab world and has even conducted secret talks with Israel about prisoner swaps and in particular the fate of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Hezbollah in Lebanon in June 2006. Israel recently turned down a prison swap for the corporal even after Meshal assured the Israelis he was still alive. So, how did Meshal, who is probably still an Israeli target, become important enough to meet a former US president?
In the mid-1990s, he was a shadowy, central figure in the Hamas terror underground until Israeli assassination squads learned his identity and zeroed in on him. In an effort to escape certain death in the narrow confines of the Palestinian territories, he moved to the Jordanian capital, Amman, with his wife and seven children. Once there, he operated out of the Hamas political offices with the knowledge and consent of the Jordanian government. Before long, the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad got a tip about his new location and his daily routine from its Mossad bureau chief in Jordan. Mossad director, Danny Yatom quickly informed Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu whose advice was: “Go and knock him down. Knock him down. Tell your people to do that.” Yatom responded that killing Meshal in Jordan would jeopardize an accord the previous Israeli P.M., Yitzhak Rabin had made with the Jordanians but Netanyahu was unimpressed by Yatom’s reasoning. “I want action and I want it now,” Netanyahu told him.
Within weeks, an eight-man Mossad assassination team was assembled in Jordan with orders to assassinate Meshal. Two of the team, using the names Barry Beads and John Kendall, were chosen as the hit-men while their colleagues were tasked for a back-up role in case it all went wrong. Each member of the team, including Beads and Kendall, carried bona fide Canadian passports, a ploy often used by Mossad’s overseas agents. In some cases, Mossad agents have also used Australian and EU passports. The Mossad plan was to kill Meshal by means of a deadly chemical weapon in front of the Hamas office in downtown Amman.
On the morning of September 26, 1997, Beads and Kendall watched Meshal and his children get into his chauffeur-driven car outside the family home for his journey to work. His routine was for the chauffeur to drop him off outside his office and then take the children to school. On this morning, Kendall and Beads, driving a Toyota rental car, followed Meshal from his home but the chauffeur spotted them and became suspicious. Meshal phoned the local police who checked the plate of the Toyota and reported there was no need to worry because it was rented to a Canadian tourist. Convinced he was safe, Meshal proceeded to his office. When he finally stepped from his car, Beads approached to shake hand in order to distract his attention while Kendall prepared to spray a deadly chemical into his ear lobe. At first, Kendall missed with the spray but tried again, this time successfully. Locals seeing Meshal being attacked ran to his aid and the two hit-men made a hasty retreat. They sprinted to their car and tried to drive off but found their exit blocked by several vehicles. The Mossad back-up team arrived but realizing they were outnumbered fled the scene. In the meantime, Kendall and Beads were close to being lynched by Hamas supporters but local police arrived on the scene and arrested them. Nearby, Meshal collapsed on the pavement and was rushed to hospital where he was placed on life support to stabilize his heart and lungs. Tissue tests confirmed he had been sprayed with a chemical weapon for which his doctors had no antidote.
On hearing details of the attack, Jordan’s experienced counter- intelligence chief, Samih Batihi suspected Israeli involvement. He went to the police station where Beads and Kendall were being held and within hours got them to admit they were Mossad agents on an assassination mission. Before the day was over, Jordan’s King Hussein, who was in a furious mood, phoned Israeli PM., Benyamin Netanyahu and told him copies of the confessions of Beads and Kendall were on their way to US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. The King warned that, if Mossad did not provide an antidote to the chemical weapon used on Meshal, Kendall and Beads would be subjected to a public trial, which would seriously damage Israel’s reputation and anger Jordan’s ally, the United States. However, if an antidote was made available the two hit-men would be freed. Within an hour of that call an Israeli military plane landed in Amman with the antidote. A day after Meshal was injected with it he slowly began to recover. The captured Mossad agents, minus their Canadian passports, were handed over to the Canadian embassy in Amman and then secretly driven across the Allenby Bridge into Israel.
Meshal later moved with his family to the Syrian capital, Damascus where he has continued to represent Hamas in talks with Arab nations. He has also had private meetings with European diplomats but the offer to meet former US President, Jimmy Carter was considered a coup. Carter was responsible for bringing Egypt and Israel to the negotiating table in September 1978 when Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat and Israeli President, Menachem Begin signed the first peace deal between Israel and its Arab neighbors. This time, Carter has no clout to force anyone to the negotiating table but some Arab nations are happy to see him making an effort at a time when US policy in the Middle East is stagnating.