Word: mashaal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Halfway through my interview with Khaled Mashaal, about an hour after Barack Obama's Cairo speech, I realized that the leader of Hamas was calling the Israeli people, and their leaders, Israelis. That seemed new. The usual term of art used by Islamic militants is "Zionists" or worse. A few days later in Iran, for example, I watched Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say in a debate, "I don't like to call them Israelis. Their leaders are so unclean that they could wash themselves in the cleanest waters and still be dirty...
...Hamas, in Israel's view, was moderate once, could it moderate itself again? The group's founding charter - which brims with anti-Semitism and rules out conceding any historically Palestinian land - doesn't exactly fill one with hope. On the other hand, Hamas' leader in Damascus, Khaled Mashaal, declared a couple of years ago, "I speak of a Palestinian and Arab demand for a state on 1967 borders. It is true that in reality there will be an entity or a state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land." Ephraim Halevy, a former head of Israel's national intelligence...
...These guys were entirely rational. They are not wild-eyed shrieking wackos." -Edward Peck, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, after meeting with a group of Hamas leaders including Mashaal, whom Peck said was "moderate in many senses." Times of London, July...
...Mashaal narrowly survived a famous attempt on his life by Israeli Mossad agents. Posing as Canadian tourists, the agents smeared Mashaal's neck with a lethal poison. (Other accounts of the attack suggest Mossad injected the poison into his ear.) The would-be assassins were apprehended, and an outraged King Hussein brokered a deal: their release in exchange for the antidote, which saved Mashaal's life. The attack helped vault Mashaal toward the top of Hamas's leadership structure...
...have met [Mashaal] question his leadership qualities. A senior Arab official with decades of experience came away particularly impressed with his 'willingness to learn,' which he noted was rare indeed for those at his level. The question, rather, is whether...[his] brand of militant pragmatism will continue to hold sway within the Hamas leadership." -Mouin Rabbani, in a preface to a Mashaal interview published in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring...