Amid all the excitable nonsense being talked about dead Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh I think the BBC has topped the lot. In an interview broadcast on Radio 4’s PM programme last night broadcast (at 17:35 mins) one interviewee explained that up to one million Jews worldwide might be on hand to assist Mossad in executions. That would mean about one in every dozen Jewish people worldwide is a secret assistant to assassins.
Now I must have more than a dozen or so Jewish friends. So which is it? Maybe I know two? It makes you think doesn’t it?
The next time I am at a friend’s child’s bar mitzvah the likelihood is that on at least 10 separate occasions during the day I’ll be helping myself at the buffet beside, or dancing opposite, someone who secretly helps in assassinations. Which will certainly make me more circumspect about my dance moves, not to mention barging in at the buffet queue.
Most people are terrible at keeping secrets, and Jews are no different from anyone else in this regard. So the idea that up to a million of them keep this secret knowledge strikes me as not just one of the most ridiculous, but in the present climate one of the most dangerous, ideas for the BBC to pump into circulation. Yet it typical of the lather nearly all the press have got into with this Dubai business.
If anyone is interested in a more balanced and factual view of things, can I heartily recommend the indispensable Tom Gross here, not least the section “Has Israel been set up?“
YNET NEWS.COM
British columnist Gordon Thomas, who wrote book on Israeli intelligence agency, says recent Dubai assassination of senior Hamas figure 'a classic example of how Mossad goes about its work' "
In the past year, senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had moved to the top of Mossad's list of targets, "each of which must be legally approved under guidelines laid down over half a century ago by Meir Amit, the most innovative and ruthless director-general of the service," Daily Telegraph columnist Gordon Thomas wrote.
Al-Mabhouh was recently assassinated in Dubai. Hamas claims Israel's intelligence agency was behind the hit.
These guidelines, claimed Thomas, state that "each execution must be sanctioned by the incumbent prime minister. Any execution is therefore state-sponsored, the ultimate judicial sanction of the law. The executioner is no different from the state-appointed hangman or any other lawfully-appointed executioner."
In an editorial published Wednesday, Thomas said the killing in Dubai "is a classic example of how Mossad goes about its work," adding that al-Mabhouh's 11 assassins had been chosen from the 48 current kidon (members of Mossad's assassination unit), six of whom are women.
"It has yet to be established how al-Mabhouh was killed, but kidon's preference is strangling with wire, a well-placed car bomb, an electric shock or one of the poisons created by Mossad scientists at their headquarters in a Tel Aviv suburb," said Thomas, who claims he wrote the only book approved by Mossad, Gideon's Spies.
"In their base deep in the Negev Desert – the sand broken only by a distant view of Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona – the kidon practice with a variety of handguns, learn how to conceal bombs, administer a lethal injection in a crowd and make a killing look accidental," he wrote.
"They review famous assassinations – the shooting of John F Kennedy, for example – and study the faces and habits of potential targets whose details are stored on their highly restricted computers. There, too, are thousands of constantly updated street plans downloaded from Google Earth."
In his column, Thomas also mentioned the assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mugniyah in Damascus two years ago. "Mossad psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, psychoanalysts and profilers – collectively known as the "specialists" – were told to decide the best way to kill Mugniyah.
"They concluded that he would be among the guests of honor at the Iranian Cultural Centre celebrations in 2008 for the celebration of the Khomeini Revolution. The team rigged a car-bomb in the headrest of the Mitsubishi Pajero they discovered Mugniyah had rented, to be detonated by a mobile phone. As Mugniyah arrived outside the Culture Centre at precisely 7pm on February 12, the blast blew his he Thomas said that following the 2005 assassination of Fathi Shkaki in Malta, police who came to search his bedroom found a "Do not disturb" sign was on his door – "a signature that was repeated in last month's Dubai killing." Shkaki was also at the top of Mossad's target list, the columnist wrote.
Two weeks after Hamas' al-Mabhouh assassinated, police chief warns intelligence agencies not to operate clandestinely on Dubai soil, adds no chance victim came to meet Iranian figures Roee Nahmias Published: 02.03.10, 15:21 / Israel News
Dubai Chief of Police Lieutenant Colonel Dahi Khalfan Tamim warned Hamas and the Mossad on Wednesday against operating on Dubai territory behind the backs of the authorities. "Anyone trying to operate behind our back should watch his own back," Tamim said to the London-based newspaper El-Shark El-Awsat.
Tamim also referred to the activities of senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was killed in Dubai two weeks ago, which he said were entirely commercial, and had no connection to arms.
He added that Dubai completely rejects the possibility that foreign elements enter the country under false pretenses. "This is completely unacceptable," he asserted.
He also rejected claims heard from Israel that al-Mabhouh went to Dubai to meet with Iranian figures. "If al-Mabhouh had wanted to meet Iranians, he could have gone to Syria. This is the easiest option, because Iranians can enter Syria without difficulty, while it is hard for them to enter Dubai. He could also have gone to Iran, so why would he meet them in Dubai?"
He did not reject the possibility that the Mossad was behind al-Mabhouh's murder, but neither did he confirm it. "We have not accused the Mossad and we will not do so until we have discussed this possibility. I do not discount the possibility that some foreign element was involved in his death – perhaps the Mossad, perhaps others. At the beginning of the week, the chief of police had said that he and his staff suspect the Mossad was behind the assassination. "Personally, I don't rule out any possibility," he said, adding that the assassination team "included seven people or more who were in possession of various European passports." The Dubai police hurried to declare that they were not cooperating with Hamas in the investigation. "We are cooperating with the Palestinian embassy. We have a Palestinian embassy and consulate, but we are not working with separate elements," Tamim said. "If Hamas wants to work with us, we will say that this is a sovereign issue, and no other group can be involved."