Will Netanyahu resign
Palestine, 10/5/1997

Israel officially has refrained from any official admission that its agents were responsible for the attempt on the life of Khaled Mishal but the brief statement given by cabinet secretary after the normal Sunday weekly session of the Israeli government illustrated an implicit acknowledgment by Israel that its Mossad agents were the ones who tried to kill Khaled Mishal.

Immediately after the two Israeli agents were arrested in Amman, Prime Minister Netanyahu despatched Mossad head Danny Yatom to Jordan in a secret visit aimed at easing King Hussein's anger. Yatom admitted to the king that his men were involved in the attack and conveyed an urgent message from Netanyahu asking that the case be handled with maximum care. King Hussein said he wanted first the medicine that counters the effect of the poisonous injection that Mishal received. "First, I need the treatment for Mishal. Secondly, I am ready to discuss a set of matters only after there is no danger to his life," the king told Yatom.

Though Israel has officially refused to claim responsibility, leading opposition and even coalition politicians called on Netanyahu to bear responsibility for the ill-fated Mossad mission in Jordan. Israeli sources said the major fiasco the Mossad was involved in has badly affected Israel on the diplomatic arena and damaged the prestigious Mossad even more than the damage caused to the Jewish state in the wake of the Lavon Affair in 50s and the Lilhammer ordeal in Noway in 1973.

Early in the 50s, Israeli Mossad agents bombed US targets and installations in Cairo in an attempt to undermine the national and patriotic regime of late president Jamal Abdul Nasser. The operation was later known as the Lavon affair as it was named after Israel's foreign minister Pinhas Lavon who at the time of the scandal was acting prime minister of the Jewish state. In 1973, Mossad agents shot dead an Algerian waiter in Lilhammer, Noway, believing he was Ali Hassan Salameh, commander of PLO Security Apparatus, better known as Force 17.

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