A Tale of Two Passports

Wall Street Journal
06 July '10

Remember Britain's outrage at Israel over the forged U.K. documents allegedly used in the Dubai assassination of Hamas big shot Mahmoud Mabhouh? Compare that uproar with the remarkable silence over the forged British passport that the FBI says was used by at least one of the Russian spies recently arrested in the U.S.

At this stage during the Dubai affair in mid-February, the Labour government had already summoned the Israeli ambassador and announced criminal investigations amid furious statements from all political parties. It expelled another Israeli diplomat a month later. The Guardian newspaper ran some 17 articles highlighting the passport accusations.

By contrast, a week into the Russian forgery story, there is not a hint of a diplomatic row between London and Moscow. The Guardian mentioned the fake passport allegations in two articles that lacked the breathless condemnation directed at Israel. The paper's editorial on the Russian spy-ring ignores the passport angle altogether.

(Read full article)

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Prepare for moral confusion

George Jonas
National Post
16 June '10

On Jan. 19 this year a man named Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, described as a terrorist by Israel, was throttled in a Dubai hotel room. His killers, say Dubai officials, were Israeli agents. Dubai alleges that a travelling circus of Mossad assassins, 26 or more, participated in the hit, utilizing British, French, Irish, German and Australian passports.

Whether or not it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly seems to take one to put down a terrorist. A hit team of 26 sounds like overkill, though we should assume most were only roadies, pitching tents and picking up after the elephant. Given all the paperwork involved, 26 may not even have been the full complement.

On June 4, an Israeli citizen travelling under the name of Uri Brodsky was arrested by Polish border guards on arrival at Warsaw airport. The Poles were acting on German information that Brodsky had assisted the hit team in Dubai by helping to obtain a German passport for one of their members. Now the Germans want Poland to extradite the Israeli, so they can put him on trial for whatever role he played, if any, in obtaining a passport in Cologne for another person under the name of Michael Bodenheimer to travel to Dubai for the alleged purpose of participating in the hit.

The Israelis oppose the request for all the obvious reasons, but especially because they fear that Brodsky may end up being tried in Dubai. Indeed, news agency reports this week indicate that Dubai, after initially saying it had no interest in seeking Brodsky's extradition, is now changing its tune. The Gulf News quotes Dubai Police Chief Lieutenant-General Dahi Khalfan Tamim saying that a request for extradition may follow evidence showing a "direct link to the assassination on our soil."

There was a time when Dubai's request wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell, but hell offers air conditioning these days and modern snowballs are heat-resistant. In our topsy-turvy times of global warming and infernal cooling, an allegation of counterterrorism can get a person extradited faster than an allegation of terrorism. It's still unlikely that Germany would send an Israeli to an Arab country to be tried, but it's no longer unthinkable.

(Read full story)

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Terrorist With A Five-Star Tab

Who was paying for the luxury lodgings of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh?


Claudia Rosett
Forbes.com
22 April '10
Posted before Shabbat

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Were it not for the recent, high-profile murder of a Hamas terrorist leader on the premises, the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel would be notable mainly for its glitz and comfort. As it is, in the many stories written about the death of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, found suffocated to death in his Al Bustan guest room in January, the hotel's five-star rating has been mentioned mostly in passing.

When I dropped by the Al Bustan Rotana during a recent trip to Dubai, it struck me that the luxuriousness of the hotel has not been fully conveyed. That matters. The opulence with which al-Mabhouh surrounded himself on his fatal trip underscores some big unanswered questions, not about the alleged killers (whose trail has received plenty of official attention) but about al-Mabhouh (whose doings in Dubai have yet to be explained).

Al-Mabhouh was, after all, a senior member of Hamas--a Palestinian organization that expects of its underlings an austere dedication to Islamic law and tutors them to sacrifice everything for such Hamas charter causes as the destruction of Israel. Al-Mabhouh, like a number of other Hamas leaders, was based in Damascus. But he was a big cog in a Hamas system that in 2007 seized complete control of Gaza and with the backing of Iran has made it a priority to saturate Gaza with weapons, while the population lives in poverty--dependent on massive handouts from places such as the U.S. and European Union, much of that funneled via outfits such as the United Nations.

(Read full article)

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Analysis: The Legacy of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Jonathan Spyer
GLORIA Center
26 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

Wherever departed Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is now, he is presumably (I don't share this presumption. Y.) enjoying the considerable trouble the nature of his exit is causing his Israeli enemies.

The British decision to expel an unnamed Israeli diplomat following the conclusion of an investigation into the alleged use by Israel of cloned British passports in an assassination operation probably does not signal the onset of a general crisis in relations between London and Jerusalem. Still, it is not an everyday act, and the language used by the foreign secretary in announcing the expulsion was notably harsh.

This affair has so far traveled along similar lines to the last major set-to between the UK and Israel over the issue of Israeli intelligence activities overseas. In 1986, a number of forged British passports were discovered in an Israeli diplomatic pouch in West Germany. This incident was followed a year later by the apprehending of a Palestinian employed as a double agent by Israeli intelligence, together with a cache of weapons, in a northern English town. The result was the expulsion from Britain of Arie Regev, an official at the Israeli Embassy. Regev was widely regarded as the chief of the Mossad station in the UK.

Then, as now, the anger of senior British officials was real, not feigned. And the public revelations of the events meant that a response of a public nature was also inevitable. But the substantive response was a managed one. Cooperation between Israeli and British intelligence services suffered for a while. But channels of communication stayed open via Washington. Information of really crucial importance continued to be shared.

(Read full article)
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Spinning the death of a terrorist

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
28 February '10

The media continue to give prominent coverage to the investigation of the death of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose body was found some six weeks ago in a Dubai luxury hotel. Dubai's police authorities have boasted that it took them just 24 hours to come close to solving the case, and their ostensible professionalism and efficiency have been widely praised after the release of extensive CCTV footage that supposedly shows various teams involved in al-Mabhouh's assassination.

However, it seems that few in the media have been willing to notice what was rightly highlighted in a report by Global Post correspondent Tom Hundley, who pointed out that Dubai "has become a kind of Arabian Big Easy where a senior operative in a powerful political organization can be assassinated in a five-star hotel - and the crime will be hushed up for more than a week while the powers-that-be decide how the story will be spun."

Indeed, it is definitely noteworthy that almost ten days elapsed before Mabhouh's assassination was announced by the UAE government's official press agency, which reported on the day of his funeral that he had been killed by an "experienced criminal gang."

(Read full post)

Related: Video Killer Thriller In Dubai
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Jason Bourne, Call Your Office

Emanuele Ottolenghi
Contentions/Commentary
25 February '10

Another day, and another Western government chastises Israel for the use of non-Israeli passports in the assassination of Hamas terrorist mastermind Mahmoud al-Mabhou. This time it’s Australia’s turn. Australia’s PM, Kevin Rudd, was quoted as saying that

Any state that has been complicit in use or abuse of the Australian passport system, let alone for the conduct of an assassination, is treating Australia with contempt and there will therefore be action by the Australian government in response.

Clearly, one needs to believe Dubai’s police on the revelations about the forged passports. There is no smoking gun yet about Israel’s responsibility. And hopefully, Israel will keep quiet about this. As Yossi Melman indicates in today’s Haaretz, the investigation is rising to comical levels, even as the evidence against Israel is thin.

Look, anyone familiar with James Bond, Jason Bourne, and the Mission Impossible franchise knows that secret agents travel on forged passports. And even assuming Israel is responsible, what did anyone expect — a bunch of Israelis to show up at Dubai airport waving their Israeli passports? Just imagine the conversation.

UAE immigration officer: Nationality?

(Read full post)

When It's Necessary and Desirable To Assassinate Terrorists

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
24 February '10

There has been a huge international controversy about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leading Hamas terrorist, in Dubai on January 19. I have no idea who did it but have some points to make on the subject.

1. Generally speaking, media coverage almost never (in Europe) or only minimally (in the United States) talks about what Mabhouh actually did to merit his end. The New York Times had the following paragraph at the very end of its story:

“Mr. Mabhouh had a role in the 1989 abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers, and was also involved in smuggling weapons into Gaza, Israel and Hamas have said. Israel officials say the weapons came from Iran.”

It would seem that there would be more discussion of the deeds of such people so they are not portrayed, at least implicitly, as innocent victims. Readers could weigh the assassination against their crimes, which would otherwise go unhindered and unpunished. Mabhouh was probably in Dubai arranging more arms' shipments from Iran so that Hamas could go to war again, causing deaths on both sides. He was a real war criminal, in contrast to the bogus ones fabricated by the terrorist-sponsoring dictatorships which seem to have so much influence on the "human rights" agenda.

2. As long as Western states do nothing to help bring Hamas or Hizballah terrorists to justice, and since Israel has no way of getting these people before a court, it has no option other than the extra-judicial one. Remember that an Israeli cabinet minister is more likely to face prosecution in the United Kingdom nowadays than a terrorist who has murdered Israeli civilians.

(Read full post)
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BBC: 1 in 10 Jews work with spy agency assassins

Adam Holland
23 February '10

Last week, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an interview in which it was stated that between 500,000 and one million Jews around the world are available to facilitate assassinations committed by the Israeli spy agency Mossad. This story has already been covered by a number of blogs (starting with Judeosphere). I had an opportunity to listen to the interview today and found that, although the BBC has claimed that this bizarre conspiracy theory came at the end of the broadcast and so could not be rebutted, the entire interview is a shocking series of absurd assertions concerning information the guest claims to have learned directly from anonymous Mossad agents.



The interviewee, an author named Gordon Thomas, starts by stating that the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had "all the hallmarks of a Mossad operation". He then attempts to list these hallmarks, but names only one: that al-Mabhouh was killed in a hotel bedroom, and Mossad assassins are "trained in that very tactic". By this standard, any killing in a hotel bedroom could be blamed on the Mossad. The claim that this means the killing had "all the hallmarks" is quite a leap.

(Read full article)
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Damned if You Do, Damned if You Do Otherwise

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
24 February '10

It's easy to get the impression that Israel's critics will castigate it no matter what it does (short of disbanding: there would be muted satisfaction if that happened. For at least two days).

Remember how not long ago Richard Goldstone explained that although everything Israel had done in Gaza was awful, commando units taking out individual Hamas commanders would have been alright. Well, perhaps that's what recently happened to that fellow with the false identity in Dubai.

If Goldstone did any applauding, I didn't hear of it.

(Read full post)
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When fighting terror is an outrage

Soccer Dad
24 February '10

After the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the United States attempted to capture the terrorist responsible by forcing the plane they were on to land on an American-Italian base in Sicily. However, Italy and Egypt were outraged and Italy refused to extradite the terrorists.

Jack Ohman the cartoonist for the Oregonian brillaintly captured the hypocrisy of the anger directed at the Reagan administration for trying to bring the killers to justice. His cartoon showed pictures of Hosni Mubarak, Bettino Craxi and Yasser Arafat; under each picture there was a caption: "Mr. Mubarak demands an apology"; "Mr. Craxi demands an apology"; "Mr. Arafat demands an apology."

On the right of the panel was a wheelchair draped with an American flag. The caption was "Mr. Klinghoffer has no demands."

For the all the outrage the three politicians expressed, there was no remorse that they had played a role in allowing terrorists to kill or escape. Things have not changed much. Arab terrorists still threaten Israel with the acquiescence of Arab states and European countries still enable them.

The Washington Post reports In a shift, United Arab Emirates may tighten travel rules after assassins' entry:

The use of forged European passports by assassins who entered Dubai and killed a Hamas operative may lead the United Arab Emirates to review the open border policies that have made it a commercial and tourist hub, a top UAE official said Sunday.

(Read full post)
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Israel's Right To Self-Defense

The Dubai hit exposes the failure of international law to fight jihadi terror, forcing the Jewish state to act independently.


Al-Mabhouh's handiwork.

Gerald Steinberg
Wall Street Journal
23 February '10

Jerusalem

The headlines and video images allegedly showing Israeli spies in Dubai are titillating, but they mask the serious issues involved in the death of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Along with predictable European hand-wringing over forged passports, this case is the latest example of the failure of the international legal system and the United Nations to provide a remedy to mass terror.

Al-Mabhouh was a cold-blooded murderer—in an interview just last year on Al Jazeera he boasted about kidnapping and then killing two Israeli soldiers. He was also a major figure in arranging arms shipments from Iran to Gaza. Al-Mabhouh shared responsibility for the thousands of rocket attacks fired at civilians in Sderot and other Israeli towns, which resulted in last year's war in Gaza. In his travels, the Hamas terrorist was probably making arrangements for the next round of attacks.

But international law provides no means for stopping terrorists like Al-Mabhouh, or for his Hezbollah counterpart, Imad Moughniyeh, whose life ended with an explosion in Damascus in 2008. (In addition to numerous attacks against Israelis, Moughniyeh has been blamed for the 1983 Beirut bombings that killed hundreds of American and French peacekeepers and the murder of Lebanese President Rafik Hariri.) Cases involving Muslim terrorists, supported by Iran, would never be pursued by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, or raised in the framework of the United Nations. Al-Mabhouh violated the human rights of untold Israeli civilians, but the U.N.'s Human Rights Council—which is dominated by such moral stalwarts as Libya, Algeria, and Iran—has no interest in Israeli complaints.

It is equally hard to imagine Interpol issuing arrest warrants in response to Israeli requests. And if warrants were issued, history shows that German, French, Belgian, and other European governments would not risk the consequences of acting on them. Little effort was ever made to apprehend the perpetrators of the Munich Olympic massacre, or of the deadly bombing attacks against synagogues in Istanbul and Athens. It's a widely known secret that European governments had ungentlemanly agreements with the PLO that allowed the Palestinians to operate from their territories, provided the terror attacks occurred elsewhere. Not until 2003 did the EU even put Hamas on its terror list. Hezbollah is currently free to operate in Europe.

(Read full story)
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El País, Pots And Kettles

Eamonn McDonagh
Z-Word Blog
20 February '10

El Páis of Madrid is a wonderful newspaper. In the lead editorial of today’s edition it fearlessly condemns the supposed assassination by Israel of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

As well as being legally reprehensible and morally unacceptable the policy of selective assassination, or to put it another way, the dirty war only contributes to the illusion that there are alternative solutions to the one that Israel will sooner or later have to face: an end to the occupation and the opening of talks with the Palestinians on the basis of a two state solution.

Stirring stuff. Spain is a member of NATO and has a large contingent of troops in Afghanistan. Those troops regularly kill members of the Taliban and - as do all troops faced with the challenges they are faced with - regularly kill civilians too. No doubt tomorrow’s lead editorial in El País will call for the immediate withdrawal of Spain’s contingent in Afghanistan on the grounds that its activities in that nation are legally reprehensible and morally unacceptable and are doing nothing to address the root causes of violence there.

Spain is an ally of the United States. As I write this post there are American UAVs prowling the skies of Pakistan and Afghanistan looking for leaders of the Taliban to assassinate.

(Read full post)
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Hapless French Foreign Minister unwittingly provides portrait of European weakness as he patronises and condemns Israel

(I translate here his interview today with a French newspaper)


Robin Shepherd
Robin Shepherd Online
20 February '10

In an interview with the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner outlines his views on the Dubai assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. He also talks about the desirability of Europe and the international community recognising a Palestinian state regardless of whether Israel gives its consent and even before agreement has been reached on the state’s borders.

I offer my translation from the original French of those parts of the interview which deal with Israel and make some comments of my own below it. I submit that both the questions and the answers provide stark illustration of many of the guiding assumptions of French policy in the Middle East.

Here is my translation with the headline and the questions in bold:


Kouchner: “A Palestinian state, quickly”

Is Israel a rogue state that uses the passports of friendly countries to execute its enemies?

We condemn targeted assassinations and the use of forgeries. The agents [who killed al-Mabhouh] did not, contrary to the situation with the Brits, steal the identities of our nationals but they did use a false French passport and a false name. We condemn this unreservedly.

Where could this crisis between Europe and Israel lead?

What needs to happen to get beyond this crisis is to affirm the political role of Europe in quickly laying down the conditions for the peace process and the creation of a Palestinian state. To receive Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom I will be dining on Sunday, is to support a man who holds the keys to the two state solution. The question of the moment is the construction of a new reality: France is training Palestinian police officers, enterprises are investing in the West Bank…Further, one could envisage the speedy proclamation of a Palestinian state and its immediate recognition by the international community even before negotiations on its borders. I would be glad to see this happen. However, I am not confident that other European countries would follow me on this, and I’m not even confident I’d be right. [NB: This last bit does not appear to make much sense in French either.]

Does this affair [the assassination in Dubai] tell us something about the kind of country Israel is becoming?

It tells us of the immediate necessity for peace and a Palestinian state. An Israel living in peace will fully rediscover the values on which it was founded and for the sake of which we support its security and its existence — for which we support Israel itself.
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The interview then trails off into other subjects. So, here are some thoughts on what Kouchner said:

(Read full article)
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On not saying you’re sorry

Fresnozionism.org
18 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Everyone seems to want Israel to apologize, or ‘clarify’, or in some way abase itself today.

In connection with the Dubai assassination, the Dubai police chief has called for the head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, to be arrested. British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has called the use of British passports in the operation an “outrage”, and called in the Israeli ambassador to discuss the incident.

If the Mossad did kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, then good for them — nobody deserved it more than Mabhouh. Hamas admitted that Mabhouh was responsible for the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1989, has helped plan Hamas terrorism for years, and was recently involved in bringing Iranian weapons to Gaza. Israel doesn’t need to apologize; in fact the Mossad should expand its activities and kill more Hamas leaders.

Israel is at war and doesn’t need to apologize for shooting back.

(Read full post)
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We’re all thrilled by Mossad the movie

Of course we should condemn extrajudicial murder, but I still can’t help admiring Israel’s nerve


Melanie Reid
Timesonline.co.uk
18 February '10

(While misunderstanding some key points, this is not exactly what one normally hears from the U.K. and evidently she's not alone this time. A good read. Y.)

Steven Soderbergh, evidently, was only kidding when he said that there would be no Ocean’s 14. He’s plainly been hard at work filming in a hotel in Dubai, as we can see from the trailers running on News at Ten. With Mossad operatives filling in as movie extras.

Now I know we really, really shouldn’t joke about these things. I should be wearing black and have a long face and be uttering pieties about the disgraceful “extrajudicial” killing of the Hamas military chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, apparently by Israeli agents.

All nice people, quite rightly, are adopting the proper moral stance and expressing outrage and disgust at this affront to international law and justice. But the rest of us ... well, we simply can’t wait until the movie comes out. Largely thanks to the blurry CCTV pictures, there is an element to the assassination in Dubai that is appallingly irresistible. What the secret agents did — and, critically, what we saw them do — was compelling and breathtaking in its cleverness.

Box office, in other words.

(Read full story)

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Scandal over Mossad use of UK passports curiously fails to materialise with Britons awe struck at Israeli daring

Robin Shepherd
Robin Shepherd Online
18 February '10

There is something very strange going on in Britain, and Israel’s detractors are hopping mad. Not, I hasten to add over the apparent use by the Mossad of six British passports in the assassination in Dubai of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Criticism on that score is both reasonable and necessary. No country can allow its passports to be used by a foreign state, let alone in the course of a secret service hit job. Britain is no exception.

What vexes them is not so much the use of the passports per se as the fact that the kind of hysterical public furore that we have come to expect whenever a stick presents itself for the beating of Israel has singularly failed to materialise. On the contrary, large sections of the British press have responded with barely disguised awe at the audacious operation that the Israelis had the balls to carry out.

The usual suspects in the Guardian and the BBC look uncommonly isolated. Witness BBC MidEast Editor Jeremy Bowen on World Service Television this morning.

A dour and subdued looking Bowen was asked to reflect on the effect the affair might have on the UK’s already strained relationship with the Jewish state but was only able to warn of “very severe” consequences at some vague point in the future if the allegations were proved to be correct.

Seumas Milne, a regular columnist for the Guardian and one of the most fanatical opponents of Israel in the British press, was almost tearful at the sheer refusal of both the media and the government to jump to attention in the usual manner. Writing in today’s Guardian he said:

(Read full article)
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Mahmoud al-Mabhouh: To Kill a Terrorist - Exclusive Analysis

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
17 February '10

The assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has touched off a great deal of outrage by the same media organizations and countries that typically ignore the murders committed by Islamic terrorists. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was a Muslim Brotherhood member and a co-founder of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the "armed wing" of Hamas. Essentially Mahmoud was a co-founder of the terrorist sub-group responsible for more than half of the murders of Israelis that have taken place over the last decade alone.

If you're wondering what that long string of syllables, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, means. It's in memory of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a Muslim religious leader who founded the "Black Hand" terrorist group, the first modern day Muslim terrorist group in Israel, which murdered Jewish farmers and tried to launch an uprising in order to create an Arab-Islamic state in place of Israel. The good Sheikh worked together with the Mufti of Jerusalem, who went on to help Hitler to carry out the Holocaust. Qassam never had the chance to do the same, as he was killed in 1935 while hiding in a cave after the murder of a Jewish police officer.

The only difference between Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and his inspiration Sheikh Al-Qassam, is that the latter met his end in a cave and the former in a hotel room. Both men were committed and fanatical Islamic terrorists who plotted to drown the region in blood in the name of their Jihad. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's presence in Dubai was no casual vacation trip. Mabnouh had become a key figure in the weapons smuggling network between Hamas and its Iranian backers. Meanwhile Dubai has become an vital link in the chain of international terrorist operations. Its global import-export connections combined with the support of UAE leader Sheikh Zayed for Hamas, and Dubai's proximity to Iran make it a mecca for terrorist smuggling operations.

(Read full article)

Related: Mossad? I certainly hope so!
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Dubai Does PR Right

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
17 February '10

It’s always funny to hear people talk about Zionist manipulation of the media, because the truth of the matter is that there’s hardly anything I can think of that the Zionists are more incompetent at. I wish the Zionists were manipulating the media. Israel vs. the media generally has the feel of the Washington Generals vs. the Harlem Globetrotters.

An example of a government doing a skillful job of using the media is on display in the case of the assassinated Hamas agent in Dubai. The Dubai police quickly and efficiently tracked down video footage of the (alleged) hit team, assembled the clips to show the progression of the team through passport control, into the hotel, in the hallway outside the target’s room, and so on. This video was narrated in English, broadcast on the local news, and then uploaded to YouTube for the entire world to see.

I think it’s great news that a senior member of Hamas has been knocked off, and I congratulate whomever did it for their courage and intrepidity. But it’s understandable that the Dubai authorities aren’t pleased that it happened on their soil, and so they’re doing their best to expose the assassins.

Now imagine if the Israeli government had shown the same speed, efficiency, and common sense in getting information out to the world about, say, a headline-making Arab claim that the IDF had committed an atrocity (pick one among dozens: the Al-Dura affair, the Gaza beach explosion, the “Jenin massacre,” or any number of incidents from the Lebanon and Gaza wars).

(Read full post/plus video)

Related article: Mossad? Well, I Certainly Hope So.
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How Iranian shells reach the Mideast’s seashores

Tony Badran
NOW Lebanon
09 February '10

The recent assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai has been described as another episode in an ongoing shadow war between Israel and Islamist groups, particularly Hamas and Hezbollah. However, the Mabhouh incident also shed light on another shadowy enterprise underpinning the destabilization of the Middle East and Iran’s quest for regional hegemony, namely Tehran’s smuggling of arms.

One of the details to emerge from the Mabhouh killing was that he played a key role in smuggling “special weapons” to Gaza, and that his trip to Dubai was related to this task. Dubai has long been a hub for Iran’s arms supply efforts to the region. Last year, for instance, the Emirati authorities stopped an Iran-bound ship, the ANL Australia, which was carrying 10 containers of North Korean weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and components for thousands of short-range rockets.

In recent years, Iranian maritime smuggling of arms has evolved exponentially in the Gulf, across to East Africa and the Red Sea, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean. The networks extend to several hotspots in the region and include Iranian allies and proxies, all of which are used as assets or levers in Iran’s efforts to advance its interests in the Middle East.

The smuggling networks span from the Bandar Abbas port in Iran, across to Yemen’s Aden and Al-Hudaydah ports, the Aseb port in Eritrea, and Sudan’s Port Sudan. The 2002 Karine-A affair, in which Israel intercepted a Palestinian vessel apparently carrying Iranian weapons for Palestinian combatants in Gaza, was a harbinger. The ship used ports in Sudan and Yemen, before heading up the Red Sea, where it was seized.

Last March, a convoy of arms smugglers was bombed, presumably by the Israel Air Force, as it drove from Sudan to Egypt, carrying what some speculated were Iranian Fajr missiles intended for Hamas. Those killed in the strike included Sudanese, Ethiopians and Eritreans, and their route was regularly used by smugglers moving weapons into Egypt. The operation exemplified the complex methods employed by Iran to move weapons into the Sinai, then into Gaza through the Rafah tunnels.

(Read full article)
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Avi’s heroic mother

Eitan Haber
Israel Opinion/Ynet
31 January '10

I first heard Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s name about 20 years ago, some time after the murder of IDF soldier Avi Sasportas. Ever since then, al-Mabhouh went off the radar screen, until he made his comeback two or three days ago as a lifeless body; a dead man.

The cries and shouts that emerged from this man of terror’s funeral in Damascus over the weekend took me back at once to memories of one of the most noble people I have ever seen in my life; a woman who I never saw cry: Rachel Sasportas, Avi’s mother.

If she did cry, and I have no doubt that her eyes were overwhelmed by tears, she must have done it behind closed doors. During daylight hours, she would walk to the officer of then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin with her head held up high; she was quiet and restrained, almost whispering.

“I have no news for you,” the defense minister kept on telling her 21 years ago. “Your son’s body has not yet been found.” And she, Avi’s mother, listened to every word attentively, as if looking for a hidden treasure, and only said: “I know. I’m certain that the IDF and other security forces are making every effort to find Avi. I trust you.”

(Read full story)
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