Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Damned if You Do, Damned if You Do Otherwise

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.

Mitchell Cohen has some thoughts on the matter here. Cohen, I'm told, has impeccable credentials on the (sane) American Left. I've decided to tag this as yet another indication that reasonable people often do see the fundamental structures of reality. (h/t Michael)
Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Israelis did it. But let's also bracket howls by those who would find a way to blame the "Zionist entity" if Mars swerved off orbit and crashed into Jupiter. Hamas and Israel are at war. Both say so. Al-Mabhouh was a founder of the military wing of Hamas, was responsible for the deaths of Israelis, wanted deaths of many more of them, and was a key intermediary between Hamas and Iran. Tehran supplies Gaza's fundamentalist rulers with weapons like longer range missiles; its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, inveighs regularly that the Jewish state should vanish from the earth (like the Holocaust, which never happened anyway, should disappear from memory). Exactly why is a holy warrior like al-Mahbouh not a legitimate target?

8 comments:

Serjew said...

Yaacov,

And it's very funny to see those arab states proclaiming their allegiance to
international law, etc. Typical demopath
strategy, as Richard Landes describes.

By the way, just receive the Wistrich's
"Lethal Obssession", at as far as I can
tel (it is a big tome) it's an excellent book

Regards.

Anonymous said...

"Exactly why is a holy warrior like al-Mahbouh not a legitimate target?"

because the EU has thought long and hard and come up with this gem of a comment:

"According to the EU-27, these incidents are not
“conducive to peace and stability in the Middle East”. "

Of course if you'd just let those Hamasistas get on with the killing, peace and stability would be assured for all time

what a ridiculous bunch of people with a complete lack of grey matter must be the ones ruling us (also note the transcription the EU has come up with - writing English but transcribing by Spanish rules - we are nuts, complete nuts)

BTW last I read, Dubai has now identified a total of 11 + 6 + 15 = 32 subjects (but I am not sure I haven't missed some) - I looked at about 10 minutes of this video footage, the long version of it, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/mission-impossible-dubai/
and was struck by what an empty place this Dubai looks like - if you'd take away these by now 32 subjects there would be almost no traffic left - that appearance of lifelessness bothers me, what if they can't come up with the money next time it's due and not get saved by their neighbour?

Silke

AKUS said...

The Dubai thing has become a Keystone cops farce - even if the Mossad today is not what it once was, the idea that they would send 30+ people to kill one terrorist in Dubai is ludicrous. There would be far to much likelihood of one of them at least being picked up at the border ... though, mind you, no one was ...

It is most likely this was a hit on Mabhouh due to an arms deal cgone bad (e.g., Russian Mafia or Iran) or some internal settling of scores - Fatah or Hamas.

In the meantime - "We are all Mossad Now" seems to be the rallying cry:

Demand for Mossad T-shirts up tenfold after Dubai assassination
Eran Davidov, marketing manager of a top mail order company selling Israeli-made products, told The Irish Times they have been overwhelmed by demand since they launched a special “Show off your Mossad and Israeli pride” campaign earlier this week.
“Don’t Mess With the Mossad” next to a picture of a pistol is top of the T-shirt range. Another popular T-shirt has the word Mossad with the letter “o” replaced by a circular target used on a rifle range, with the organisation’s title underneath: “The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.” The word Mossad in Hebrew next to a pistol is also on offer.

Anonymous said...

here's the special Dubai model - but only for men and already at a discount

Silke

http://www.israel-catalog.com/product.asp?Product=14266

Anonymous said...

I really appreciated the Cohen piece. It is always a chilling experience to read the comments at the Huffington Post.

Now just suppose Osama Bin Laden was assassinated instead of Mahmoud Al-Mabouh. Do you think there would be all this carrying on? I'm with you, Silke, just how reliable is this Dubai investigation, anyhow?

Nycerbarb

Anonymous said...

let's assume the Dubai investigation is reliable and it was Mossad then a possible explanation to me is that Mossad has by now a good chance as coming out as the one who has beaten the CCTVs at their own game - I wonder whether they'll end up with a conspiracy theories inducing final number ... (remember the US came up with just 19 for 9/11 - at least news-wise they did)

other than that it was maybe an Amnesty International or similar outfit clandestine world conference somehow gone wrong ;-)

after all Dubai would have never tolerated becoming the preferred hang-around place for weapons dealers or other people we the public are taught to frown upon ... or would it?

and while the media are making their buck with hyperventilating about this story this return to warlordism is going on and on and apparently gaining so much ground that it will shortly make outfits like the Taleban or Hamas look like lesser evils

- so maybe concentrating on Israel is just "their" preferred way of lulling the public to sleep that first of all religious leaders are failing abysmally in reigning in their believers and the scribblers of all kinds of colours play oh so "virtuously" along ...
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/africas_forever_wars

Silke

Serjew said...

What about that killer whale? I bet she/it
also works for the Mossad.

Regards,

Anonymous said...

it seems our combined efforts have managed to convince the Times:

"He pointed to the fact that two of the suspects “escaped” to Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy, as evidence that not all of those exposed could have been involved."
"“You could take all 26 of them and put them in a line walking next to the police chief of Dubai and he wouldn’t recognise them,” said the security expert."

but the Times has only 26
- what happened to the other 6? don't they qualify any longer?

the Dubai-ans must be mad to publicly admit that 26 or 32 people could enter their country on false passports and leave unmolested - those were the failures Roman generals fell into their swords for.

Silke