Ex-Mossad chief: Hamas offered 30-year cease-fire in 1997

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By Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz Correspondent

A few days before the failed assassination attempt on Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan in 1997, King Hussein conveyed an offer from the Hamas leadership to reach an understanding on a cease-fire for 30 years. That offer, intended for then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and conveyed by a Mossad representative, reached Netanyahu only after the botched hit.

This is just one of the details about past incidents that former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy reveals in his book, "Man in the Shadows," coming out in Britain on April 4, and soon to be released in Hebrew by Matar Publishing. In the book, Halevy discloses previously unknown details about security affairs from Israel's past.

Botched assassination

In September 1997, a Mossad squad tried to assassinate the leader of Hamas, Meshal, by drizzling poison in his ear. The attempt failed, two of the agents were captured and others found refuge in the Israeli embassy in Amman. Halevy recounts that King Hussein considered Israel's conduct a severe betrayal, made worse in view of the Hamas offer he had conveyed to Israel. Netanyahu called Halevy in to help calm Hussein, but the latter asked that Halevy not come to Amman, because he did not want a man whom he deemed a close friend to be involved in the nasty affair. Halevy set out nonetheless.

Relations with Amman deteriorated so badly that the king mulled demanding at a press conference that Israel turn in the Mossad agents who had fled to the embassy. If Israel did not turn them in, Hussein was seriously considering military action. Mossad discussed placating the king with various "gifts" for his army, such as night-vision equipment or upgrading some of his fighter planes.

Halevy thought otherwise. He suggested releasing Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from an Israeli prison and transfering him to Jordan, where King Hussein would then order him returned to the Gaza Strip. Opposition was fierce in the
intelligence agencies and the Israeli Defense Forces. Support for Halevy's idea came mostly from then-defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai, and it was ultimately approved by Netanyahu.

The Gulf War
Halevy's book also discusses the eve of the Gulf War of 1991. Israel warned King Hussein that harsh military action would follow if he continued to permit Iraqi fighter places to train in Jordan near the Israeli border. Israel was especially concerned by Iraqi flights near the border, across from the Negev and not far from the nuclear reactor in Dimona.

When Israeli intelligence discovered that Jordanian planes had begun training with Iraqi planes, King Hussein was informed. He did not deny it and claimed it was under an agreement with Iraq that would reduce costs for the Jordanian air force. After the Iraqi army conquered Kuwait, Israeli intelligence revealed that Iraqi pilots were conducting reconnaissance flights along the Negev border after embossing their aircraft with the identifying marks of the Jordanian air force. Israel's warning that it would be forced to take military action against Jordan convinced Hussein that he was facing a dangerous situation. Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President George Bush Sr. had already given him an earfull on the matter.

Only a secret meeting between Israel's then-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and King Hussein resolved the crisis, with Hussein pledging not to allow Iraqi fighter planes to use Jordanian air space for flights that were certainly intended to hurt Israel. However, the king refused an Israeli demand to enter Jordanian air space in a certain area if Iraq attacked Israel with ground-to-ground missiles. These missiles passed over Jordan en route to targets in Israel.

Shamir and Hussein
The importance of this revelation lies in explaining right-winger Shamir's growing rapport with Hussein. Shamir stopped supporting the idea that "Jordan is Palestine," while Ariel Sharon, who served in Shamir's cabinet, took years to change his strategic thinking on Jordan. Halevy reveals that Shamir met with Hussein three times and that they ultimately developed a great deal of mutual appreciation. The meeting at which the understanding was reached on the Iraqi flights took place in London on Friday evening. Shamir's entourage included two members who observe the Sabbath, Elyakim Rubinstein and Yossi Ben Aharon. Shamir insisted that the details of the five-hour conversation be recorded meticulously. Ben Aharon and Rubinstein refused to write on Shabbat or have the documenting take place in their presence. Shamir ruled that the occasion superseded Shabbat restrictions, and gave Halevy the task of recording the conversation.

Halevy also offers revelations about Hussein's relations with Yitzhak Rabin and events leading up to the signing of the peace treaty with Jordan, including the fact that Syria's then-president Hafez Assad did not object to it.