The Making of a Palestinian Islamist Leader: An Interview with Khalid Mishal: PART I

Khalid Mishal (Abu Walid), a founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the head of its politbureau since 1996, has been the recognized head of the movement since the assassination of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin in spring 2004. Despite his considerable influence within the organization, at least dating back to the early 1990s, Mishal did not attract attention in the West until he survived Israel’s botched assassination attempt in Amman in September 1997, which made headlines when King Hussein (with possible help from U.S. President Bill Clinton) compelled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to provide the antidote to the poison with which he had been injected in broad daylight by Mossad agents disguised as Canadian tourists. Mishal’s prominence has only increased following the Hamas victory in the January 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories. Despite the U.S.-led campaign to isolate the Islamist movement internationally, Mishal has functioned as the main interlocutor with regional and international actors seeking direct or informal contact with the organization, as well as with the international media. Since Hamas’s “external leadership” was expelled from Jordan in August 1999 following the ascension of King Abdallah II, Mishal has been based in Damascus. I met him there several times in 2006 and 2007 in my thencapacity as senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group, and I had been impressed by his willingness to engage in substantive discussion to a degree rare among political leaders (of whatever nationality). He seemed less interested in convincing his listeners that he was right than in presenting his views as clearly as possible, leaving it to them to draw their own conclusions. More than once questions were posed that one would expect him to dodge or dismiss, or at least rebut, but consistently he answered them head on. Despite his straightforward and accessible manner, and although he agreed from the outset to a formal interview, it was not easy to arrange. Because of last-minute scheduling conflicts and unexpected changes in his plans, two earlier interview attempts were aborted or cut short, the second