On September 13, 1993, keffiyeh-clad P.L.O. chairman Yasser Arafat and silver-haired Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords, shaking hands on the White House lawn with President Bill Clinton standing between them. Their agreement, which promised to bring Palestinian self-governance to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, was hailed as a historic step toward peace in the region.
But not everyone was rejoicing. Less than three weeks later, on October 1, about 20 senior leaders of Hamas, most of whom lived in the U.S., gathered at a Courtyard by Marriott airport hotel in Philadelphia in order to undermine what they viewed as an agreement made between “infidels and infidels.” Understanding that the accords would eventually result in the U.S. designating Hamas, which had begun just six years earlier, a terrorist organization, they avoided referring to it by name, instead calling it either “the movement” or “Samah” (“Hamas” spelled backward). Unbeknownst to them, the F.B.I. was listening in.
