Dubai seeks '11 Europeans' for Hamas killing

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Are they suggesting security cameras inside the guest rooms?
Do they have such things in Israel?

--- shaking my head in disbelief---

[David Guyatt]

[quote=Peter Presland]
[quote]Controlling the security cameras eh?

Now where have we seen that before - only to have it comprehensively rubbished as having no possible bearing on matters - 9/11, 7/7 for starters?[/quote]

Ah yes, when it comes to controlling security cameras, a young lady called Diana spring to mind also.

[quote]I find it verging on the comical that Mossad's apologists should go to such lengths to tell things in a manner clearly intended to strike fear into the hearts of all those stupid Arabs and laud the technical prowess of their masters whilst simultaneously suggesting they didn't do it anyway.[/quote]

I agree Peter that the publishers of this article are unquestionably Mossad sycophants. It couldn't be clearer. The article also appears to be taking the Michael out of the Dubai police by stating that it knows what it is doing and is following every nuance of the investigation -- and laughing.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Today GulfNews publishes an opinion piece by Associate Editor Duraid Al Baik. It is titled "Al Mabhouh's murder is an act of terrorism" and argues that

Terrorist acts, wherever they are committed and by whoever, should be totally rejected, whether they were planned in Tora Bora or in Tel Aviv. This has not yet happened in the case of the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh.

The full piece can be found here.

Wearing my idealistic glasses, I agree with the author that the Dubai case as well as all other targeted killings should be treated as acts of terrorism. Looking at the reality around us, it is clear though that this will never happen.
:hmpf:

[Magda Hassan]

And using the logic of the current inmates in control of the asylum Dubai would be justified in a 'preemptive strike' (plus rendition, extra judicial killings, kidnappings, secret trials, secret prisons etc) to stop the spread of this terrorism. But I hope that Dubai is above that.

To my knowledge Israel isn't even investigating the illegal use of passports and identities used in the name of their residents/citizens. Why not?

[David Guyatt]

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/...42915.html

Israel's cost-benefit calculation
By Robert Grenier


Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was one of the founders of the armed wing of Hamas [EPA]

In the various commentaries we have seen concerning the alleged Israeli assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Israel's Mossad is coming in for a great deal of criticism.

How, it is asked, could the vaunted Israeli spy service have left behind so much evidence?

Isn't the point of such operations to "eliminate" an enemy without being detected?

And when, according to this analysis, one factors in the ensuing political and diplomatic "firestorm" which is still gaining momentum, this Israeli operation - for such it certainly was - begins to look like a colossal blunder.

I would suggest, however, that those making these criticisms are missing the point.

Among other things, they are working from an old paradigm which simply is no longer relevant.

Missing the point


Surveillance cameras make remaining undetectable increasingly impossible [Reuters]

The point is that in this day and time, with ubiquitous surveillance cameras, the ability to comprehensively analyse patterns of cell phone and credit card use, computerised records of travel documents which can be shared in the blink of an eye, the growing use of biometrics and machine-readable passports, and the ability of governments to share vast amounts of travel and security-related information almost instantaneously, it is virtually impossible for clandestine operatives not to leave behind a vast electronic trail which, if and when there is reason to examine it in detail, will amount to a huge body of evidence.

Their challenge is no longer to remain permanently undetectable; that is simply unrealistic.

Rather, they have twin challenges: First, to move quickly enough that the evidence of their actions can only be gathered after the fact, as part of a forensic investigation; and second, to ensure that the inevitable trove of ex-post-facto evidence, however compelling it may seem in identifying the culprit, remains strictly circumstantial.

In the wake of this supposed blunder, does anyone know the true identity of any of the Israeli operatives? In fact there is nothing to prevent Israeli officials from doing precisely what they are doing - to refuse either to confirm or deny involvement in this operation, and to challenge their accusers to produce the incontrovertible proof.

Diplomatic costs

As for the political, diplomatic and public relations costs to the state of Israel, those are certainly considerable, but that is altogether another question, isn't it?

Since those costs were eminently predictable, the decision to launch this operation would have come down to a political/policy judgment on the part of Israeli officials as to whether the benefits of this operation justified its costs.

And before we jump to any conclusions on that account, let's take a more dispassionate look at those costs: Yes, there are a number of Western countries currently annoyed with the Israelis over the misuse of their passports and the theft of their citizens' identities. But realistically, what are they going to do? Permanently break relations? I don't think so.

Yes, the Goldstone report and the threat of indictments against Israeli officials for crimes against humanity may qualitatively affect the environment in which this latest scandal is judged, but when it comes down to it, the Israelis do not expect to be liked, and frankly do not care - certainly not when they believe their security to be at stake.

So long as their relations with the Americans are unaffected, they can afford to be fundamentally indifferent.

The simple, cruel truth is that in the end, no one - and here I would include all the governments concerned, including the concerned Arab states - is really going to care all that much, or for all that long, about the fate of one Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Yes, there will be a bit of unpleasantness for a while, but before long, life will go back to normal.

Whether or not that is the way it should be is irrelevant; it is quite clear, on the basis of much past evidence, that that is precisely the way it is going to be.

Conflict in microcosm

Indeed, one can see this incident as representative, in microcosm, of the larger Arab-Israeli (or Israeli-Palestinian) dispute.

In the smaller case, the Israelis literally get away with what some would regard as murder (albeit under circumstances where they would claim justified self-defence). They can do it because the risk-benefit calculation clearly comes out in their favour.

In the larger case, the Israelis figuratively get away with what many would regard as the political-historical equivalent of "murder" (with an analogous set of historical justifications).

Slowly, inexorably, the Israelis are getting what they want - a "settlement" which they can unilaterally impose according to their own judgment of their long-term interests, however flawed that judgment may be.

While the toll for both Israelis and Palestinians may be considerable, and will be paid out over yet more decades, in the end the Israeli calculation, to the extent anyone really makes one, is that the benefits outweigh the costs.

Robert Grenier was the CIA's chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. He was also the director of CIA's counterterrorism centre.

[Ed Jewett]

More Details Emerge on Assassination of Hamas Leader in Dubai

by Ann Talbot

Global Research, March 2, 2010
World Socialist Web Site - 2010-03-01

More details are emerging on the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was killed in Dubai on January 20 in what is widely thought to be an Israeli security service operation.
Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim claims to be “99 percent, if not 100 percent” certain that Mossad, the Israeli secret service organisation, was responsible for the assassination.
The authorities in Dubai have now identified 26 people whom they allege were involved in the assassination. They are said to have carried fake passports in the names of British, Irish, French, Australian and German citizens. It is reported that 12 British, six Irish, three French, one German and three Australian passports were used.
Closed circuit television cameras have allowed the assassins’ movements to be traced through the airport and hotel as they made their way to Mabhouh’s room. Phone calls to a number in Vienna have been tracked, and credit cards linked to what was clearly a highly organised team.
Robert Baer, a former CIA operative, commented in the Wall Street Journal on the number of people involved: “The truth is that Mr. Mabhouh’s assassination was conducted according to the book—a military operation in which the environment is completely controlled by the assassins. At least 25 people are needed to carry off something like this.”
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA agent who is now at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, told the BBC:

“This most likely was a Mossad operation. All the signatures—European passports, the way the team moved quickly to leave the country—cumulatively paint a pretty convincing case.”

“What the Dubai authorities are uncovering now is not just the assassination team, but probably the entire Mossad station,” Riedel continued. “Dubai would be a perfect place to carry out not just a one-off operation, but a long-term one against Iran.”
A retired operative for Mossad’s undercover operations division known as Michael Ross told the BBC, “It would be disingenuous to say Israel wasn’t involved in some fashion.”
But he pointed to international aspects of the assassination, saying, “I think there are more aspects and international players involved in this case than are visible to the naked eye.”
One of the international aspects is the use of credit cards by many of the latest suspects from the same small Iowa-based Meta Bank. Ross regards the use of a US bank as “very odd.”
He suggests that Mossad may not have expected the Dubai authorities to investigate the murder of Mabhouh thoroughly because they would not wish to upset the Emirate’s close relations with the West.
Britain, France, Germany and Australia have protested at the use of their passports in the assassination of Mabhouh. But there are suggestions that foreign governments and security services may have known more about the plot than they are willing to admit.
Allegations that Mossad warned Britain in advance have surfaced in the UK-based Daily Mail. The paper claims to have been told that the British Foreign Office and MI6 were informed about the operation before it took place. What the newspaper describes as “a British security source” claims to have met a Mossad agent who spoke of a “courtesy call” prior to the assassination.
The Daily Mail continues:“This is a serving member of Israeli intelligence. He says the British Government was told very, very briefly before the operation what was going to happen. There was no British involvement and they didn’t know the name of the target. But they were told these people were travelling on UK passports.”
According to the Daily Mail report, Mossad understood that the Foreign Office would have to “slap them on the wrist,” and that “The British government has to be seen to be going through the motions.”
A Foreign Office spokeswoman denied the report and claimed that the British government was informed about the use of fake British passports only hours before the Dubai police announced it at a press conference. “Any suggestion that we knew anything about the murder in Dubai before it happened, including about the misuse of British passports, is completely untrue,” she said.
“Any interference with British passports is an outrage,” Foreign Secretary David Miliband declared. “We take this case extremely seriously—the integrity of our system is critical.”
He vowed to “get to the bottom” of the affair and has demanded that the Israeli authorities cooperate fully with the UK investigation.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced an inquiry into the use of British passports, and police officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency have been sent to Israel to interview the UK citizens whose documents were cloned.
Israel’s ambassador, Ron Prosor, was invited to attend a meeting at the Foreign Office. He emerged after a 20 minute session with Sir Peter Ricketts, head of the diplomatic service, in relaxed mood. Prosor said he was happy to cooperate with Sir Peter’s request for a meeting, but added, “I was unable to shed any further light on the events in question.”
He refused to say what was discussed, telling reporters that it was “not the usual way to talk about what happens in those meetings.”
Miliband also refused to reveal what was said. He told the BBC’s Jeremy Vine, “It’s very, very important that we don’t make accusations until we know that they’re well founded.”
Miliband was one of a number of foreign ministers who met with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Brussels. Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin was said to be “very angry” about the use of Irish passports. Martin spoke of his “deep concern.”
Dr. Zion Evrony, the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, was called for talks at the foreign ministry, but said that he had “no information” about the affair.
The French foreign ministry was said to be “demanding explanations” from the Israeli embassy.
Andreas Michaelis, Germany’s Middle East envoy, held a meeting with Emmanuel Nahshon, a counsellor at the Israeli embassy in Berlin. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said, “I believe it is imperative to explain the circumstances surrounding the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.”
Lieberman’s response to the protests from EU countries was to claim that Israel was being made into a scapegoat. “There is no proof that Israel is involved in this affair, and if somebody had presented any proof, aside from press stories, we would have reacted,” Lieberman said. “But since there are no concrete elements, there is no need to react.”
Lieberman is fully aware that relations are continuing normally beneath the public protests. Miliband has happily accepted an invitation to attend a reception at the recently refurbished Israeli embassy in London.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has protested at the use of Australian passports. He said that he was not satisfied with the Israeli response. But he cautioned that Australia must “proceed very carefully” in the matter because of “very complex security and intelligence matters.”
In reality, the use of Australian passports by the Israeli security services is not new. Ian Wilcocks, the former Australian ambassador to Israel, said that during the 1990s he twice warned Israeli foreign ministry officials not to forge Australian passports for intelligence operations.
Mossad agents have been caught using Canadian and New Zealand passports in the past.
The governments involved may express their shock and anger, but the practice is one of long standing. Their protests are strictly for the record.
Whether or not the countries whose passports were used in the Dubai operation were warned in advance, they are well aware of Mossad’s record in these matters. The Israeli government has a well established practice of using assassination as a political weapon.
Israel has always operated in close association with the US. This latest assassination was an integral part of the US campaign in the Middle East and beyond. Robert Baer, who was himself once accused of trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein, put the assassination of Mabhouh in an international context.
He said, “The CIA has fired an untold number of Hellfire missiles at Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan… In addition to the intended targets, thousands of other people have been killed.”
All those countries whose passports have been used in the murder of Mabhouh have been involved in the US-led “war on terror” and are therefore implicated in countless numbers of deaths.

[Ed Jewett]

Gulf states infiltrated by all intelligence agencies

Published Date: March 02, 2010
By Ahmad Saeid, Staff Writer


KUWAIT: Kuwait and other Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries have been infiltrated by foreign intelligence agencies, as well as by the Israeli Mossad, said political experts. They made their comments after Dubai Police revealed information regarding the accused Israeli intelligence agency (Mossad) of murdering Mahmoud Al-Mabhooh, a member of the Palestinian Hamas Party last month. "I believe that Israelis are penetrating the whole world, not only the Arab world or GCC countries," said Ayed Al-Manna, a
political analyst and Kuwait University professor. He added that Dubai has achieved what other countries could not; reveal Israeli infiltration.

Usually the Mossad doesn't leave any evidence of their operations. This time, thanks to the proper utilization of technology in Dubai, Mossad made the mistake of assuming their identities would never be revealed. They were proved wrong.
Ghanim Al-Najjar, a political science professor at Kuwait University, said that all the countries in the world have an intelligence presence in the GCC and everywhere else. "This is a natural thing and it is not a strange or rare thing to happen," he said.

If a country is important then there will definitely be spies of all kinds in that country. I'm sure there are Iranian and Israeli spies in Arab countries. Even Arab countries have spies inside each other," he added. Al-Najjar asserted that it is normal for one country to try and infiltrate another.

The trick lies in being agile, careful and cautious about it. "Intelligence services cooperate with each other. They have common interests and they exchange information with each other," he noted. "In recent years intelligence agencies have concentrated more on confronting terrorism, but they shouldn't overlook threats such as foreign intelligence activities," he concluded.

http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php...Y0MzE2Ng==

[David Guyatt]

Oh boy, that'll be the day. But it will certainly raise the temperature quite considerably. Dubai is a friend. Israel is a friend. Who will the European nations support when it comes to the application of international law?

It's a no brainer I'm afraid.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middle...70139.html

Dubai: Israeli premier faces arrest


Tamim said he was 'almost certain' Israeli agents plotted the murder of al-Mabhouh [File: Reuters]

The head of the Dubai police is planning to seek the arrest of the prime minister of Israel and the head of the country's secret service, Mossad, over the killing of a Hamas leader.

Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told Al Jazeera he would ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for Binyamin Netanyahu and Meir Dagan this week.

Tamim said he was "almost certain" Israeli agents were involved in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas commander, at a Dubai hotel in January.

Israel has has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in al-Mabhouh's murder.

The police chief said Mossad had "insulted" Dubai and Western countries whose fraudulent passports were used by suspects in the assassination.

Investigation expanding

And a UAE newspaper reported that Dubai had also asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to look into prepaid credit cardsissued by the Meta Financial Group's MetaBank which the suspects used.

Citing an FBI source, The National newspaper said the investigation would look into any Israeli involvement in the killing.

Quoting Dubai police, the newspaper said: "Thirteen of the 27 suspects used prepaid MasterCards issued by MetaBank, a regional American bank, to purchase plane tickets and book hotel rooms."

MetaBank said it followed proper procedures when it issued the cards.

Authorities told the bank that the suspects appeared to have used stolen passports to get employment with US companies, MetaBank said in a statement on Tuesday.

Dubai police have published details of 26 suspects together with passport photographs, and claim to have DNA evidence of the identity of at least one of the killers.

As a consequence of the assassination, UAE officials say they will prevent Israeli citizens travelling on foreign passports from entering the country.

Dubai police last Sunday issued a statement saying the "killers used the drug succinylcholine to sedate al-Mabhouh before they suffocated him" and that "assassins used this method so that it would seem that his death was natural".

Al-Mabhouh's killing has led investigators to Britain, Ireland, Australia and Germany - countries whose passports the assassins allegedly used.

[Ed Jewett]

The Dubai assassination and the “war on terror”

2 March 2010

The reaction of governments around the world to the murder of Hamas member Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month underscores the extent to which basic precepts of international law have been torn up under the “war on terror”. As far as the US government and its allies are concerned, extra-judicial executions and so-called targeted killings now constitute a legitimate state activity and do not warrant comment, let alone condemnation.

While the Israeli government has refused to confirm or deny any involvement, its intelligence agency, Mossad, is widely understood to be directly responsible for the Dubai operation. The Obama administration has maintained a strict silence over the affair, while the governments of Britain, Australia, France, Germany and Ireland have merely issued pro forma protests over the doctoring of their passports. None has condemned Mabhouh’s murder.

The assassination was a cold-blooded operation, planned down to the last detail. According to Dubai police, 27 men and women were involved in the preparation which culminated in Mabhouh being injected with a muscle relaxant drug, succinylcholine, then suffocated with a pillow. The killers reportedly left behind medicine for high blood pressure in order to give the initial appearance of a natural death, hung a “do not disturb” card on their victim’s hotel room door and fled Dubai before the authorities were notified after Mabhouh’s wife was unable to telephone her husband.

Israel has a long record of tracking down and murdering its enemies around the world, and in the last decade has waged a systematic assassination campaign against the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza.

The more or less open acceptance by Washington and its allies of Mossad’s latest atrocity is because similar methods now form a central component of the “war on terror”. As well as being subject to indefinite detention without trial, rendition and torture, individuals identified as a threat to the security of the US state are routinely executed in countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen. True to his campaign pledge to escalate US military operations in Pakistan and Central Asia, President Barack Obama has signed off on drone air bombings in the AfPak theatre which typically kill civilians in addition to the selected target. US troops, intelligence operatives, and their proxies on the ground also continue to hunt down and kill Iraqis and Afghans involved in armed resistance activities against the foreign occupation of their countries.

It is now taken for granted in ruling circles internationally that the Central Intelligence Agency and allied intelligence agencies, including Mossad, have the right to act as judge, jury and executioner against those alleged to be involved in terrorist activities. The CIA’s murderous activities during the Cold War—including the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba and attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro—provoked international outrage. In 1976, following a wave of public opposition after revelations of CIA assassination plots internationally, President Gerald Ford issued an executive order barring the CIA from directly carrying out assassinations or contracting them out to others. But now there are no such qualms about “targeted killing” and few restrictions are placed on the CIA and military. US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair revealed last month that there are defined “policy and legal procedures” allowing the assassination of American citizens throughout the world.

Every national government aligned with Washington is culpable. The diplomatic protests registered by Britain, Australia, France, Germany and Ireland over the abuse of their passports are nothing but a grotesque charade. One need only ask the question—how would the reaction have differed had Iranian intelligence agents carried out an assassination in another country using forged European and Australian passports? Instead of diplomatic niceties there would be a drumbeat for full-scale war.

None of the national governments involved has any interest in pursuing the incident with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. All are complicit in the Zionist state’s war crimes. Britain, Australia and Germany were among just 16 countries which voted with the US and Israel last November against a UN General Assembly resolution which endorsed the Goldstone Report finding that Israel had committed war crimes during its offensive in Gaza. Moreover, after a British court last year issued an arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on war crimes charges, the Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to change the relevant legislation to ensure Israeli officials were shielded.

According to the British Daily Mail, Israel forewarned the Brown government as a “courtesy”. While this story remains unconfirmed, it raises the question as to whether the other countries involved, as well as the US, were pre-warned.

Whatever the case, there is little doubt that those responsible for the Dubai murder were conscious that most of the governments whose passports they were forging were themselves intimately familiar with assassination campaigns. The Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown has for several years presided over an extensive targeted killing operation in Iraq. According to a new book by BBC reporter Mark Urban, British elite SAS troops have murdered between 350 and 400 “terrorist” leaders in Iraq. Similar operations have been orchestrated by other US allies—Australia’s SAS is highly valued by Washington for its role in hunting down senior resistance fighters in Afghanistan, while German forces have engaged in similar killings of alleged Taliban figures.

It is no surprise, then, that the official reaction to the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai takes the form of an international league of war criminals closing ranks.

It is testament to the debased political and moral character of the major parties and the media in the US, Europe and Australia that there has been no discussion on the far reaching implications of the Dubai assassination with regard to international law and democratic rights. To the extent that concerns have been raised, they are strictly tactical—that perhaps the operation had drawn too much adverse publicity and that the Israeli government ought not to have forged passports belonging to its allies.

Other commentators, however, openly celebrated the killing. “It is an unfashionable thing to say, but I have a considerable admiration for the Israeli way of doing things,” Melanie Reid of the London Times wrote on February 18. “They want something, they get it. They perceive someone as their deadly enemy, they kill them. They get hit, they hit back. They don’t waste time explaining or justifying or agonising; nor do they allow their detractors to enter their country and then afford them generous welfare payments. They just act. No messing. No scruples. Not even a shrug and a denial, just a rather magnificent refusal to debate anything.”

The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and the official international response must be taken as a grave warning. So-called targeted killings will be increasingly relied upon by governments internationally in the coming period, applying not merely to alleged terrorists but potentially to any individual who comes to be identified as a threat to the existing social and political order.


Patrick O’Connor


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar201...-m02.shtml

[Ed Jewett]

Mossad Comes to America: Death Squads by Invitation

by James Petras / March 3rd, 2010
The principle propaganda mouthpiece of the Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO), the Daily Alert (DA), has come out in full support for Israel’s practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial assassination.
In the face of world-wide governmental condemnation (except from the Zionist-occupied White House and US Congress), the PMAJO slavishly backs any brutal murder committed by the Israeli secret police anywhere in the world and at anytime. The recent assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmoud Mabhouh, in Dubai is a case in point. The PMAJO has defended all of Mossad’s criminal actions leading up to the murder, including extensive identity theft and the stealing or falsification of passports and official documents from several European countries, presumably allied to the Zionist state. Among the Mossad agents who entered Dubai to kill Mabhouh, twelve agents used stolen or forged British passports, three Australian, three French, one German and six Irish. These agents assumed the identity of European citizens in order to commit murder in a sovereign nation.
Once again the PMAJO demonstrate that its first loyalty is to the Israeli secret police, even when they violate the sovereignty of major US allies. No doubt the PMAJO would readily support the Israeli Mossad, even if it were shown to have used U.S. documents to assassinate Mabhouh. In fact, two of the 26 Israeli assassins, carrying fake Irish and fake British passports, are known to have entered the United States after the killing and may still be here.
The position adopted by the Daily Alert and the PMAJO in defense of Israel’s international terrorist act followed several lines of attack, which will be discussed below. These include: (1) blaming the victim, (2) claiming that extra-judicial, extra territorial murders are legal, (3) minimizing the murder of ‘one’ individual, (4) deflecting attention from the Zionists by blaming ‘other Arabs’, (5) favorably comparing Mossad assassinations to US killings in Afghanistan, (6) trivializing and relativizing world condemnation, (7) citing “self-defense”, (8) praising the high tech ‘operational details’ of the assassination and (9) discrediting the Dubai police investigators rather than the Israeli perpetrators.
Abridged articles, cited in the Daily Alert, have appeared in the op-ed pages of several US, UK, Canadian and Israeli newspapers, as well as in right-wing magazines like Forbes and Commentary. The mainline Zionist propaganda technique is to avoid any discussion of Israel’s egregious crimes against sovereignty, due process, international law and the personal security of individuals. In doing so, the Daily Alert adopts the propaganda techniques common to all totalitarian regimes practicing state terrorism.
(1) Blaming the Victim
On February 22, the Daily Alert (DA) headlined two articles, which were entitled: “Killed Hamas Official betrayed by Associates says Dubai Police Chief” and “Hamas: Assassinated Operative put Himself at Risk”. The DA forgot to mention that Israeli secret police had been tracking their prey for over a month (having failed to assassinate him on six previous attempts) and that the Dubai Police Chief was not blaming Hamas officials but was in the process of accumulating evidence, witness statements, videos and documents proving the Israeli identities of the assassins. Needless to say, if we were to accept the American Zionists’ argument that any leading opponent of Israel, who travels without an army of bodyguards, is “putting himself at risk“, then we must acknowledge that ours is a lawless world where Israeli hit squads are free to commit murder anywhere, any time.
(2) Extra-Judicial, Extra territorial Murder is “Legal” (At least if the killers are Mossad)
The February 22 and February 24 issues of the DA include two articles arguing that Israel’s practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial murder is legal. One article is entitled, “The Legality of Killing of Hamas Mahmoud al Mabhoud” and the other, “The Proportionate Killing of Mahmoud al Mabhoud”. These avoid any reference to international law, which emphatically rejects cross-border, state-sponsored murders. Legality, for the PMAJO, is whatever the Israel’s secret police apparatus deems expedient in pursuit of its goal of eliminating leaders who oppose its colonial occupation and expropriation of Palestinian lands. If Israel’s extra-judicial, extra-territorial murder of an adversary in Dubai is legal, why not assassinate opponents in the US, Canada, England or any other country where they might travel, live, work or write? What if the critics and opponents of Israel decided that it was now “legal” to murder Israel’s supporters wherever they lived citing the Daily Alert’s definition of legality? We would then find ourselves in a lawless world of “legal” murder and totalitarian cross-border surveillance.
(3) Minimizing the Murder
The Feb 22, 24, and 25 issues of the Daily Alert deflect attention from the Mossad murder by making comparison to the hundreds of Afghan civilians killed by US drone attacks. The claim is that “targeting individuals” is less a crime than mass killings. The problem with this argument is that for decades Mossad has “targeted” scores of opponents overseas and killed thousands of Palestinians in the occupied territories (where they work with the domestic secret police, Shin Bet, and the military, IDF). Moreover, this argument linking Israel’s extra judicial assassinations with US colonial killing of Afghans is hardly a defense of either. By implicating the US in its defense of state terror, Israel is holding up the worst aspects of American imperialism as a standard for its own political behavior. One state’s crimes are no justification for another state’s crimes.
(4) Blaming the Arabs: Deflecting Attention from Israel
The DA Feb. 22 article entitled “The Assassination Heard Around the World” insinuates that the murder was a “result of a Hamas power struggle” or by one of “many Arab groups who loathes the Islamist Hamas”.
In other words, all the forged or stolen European passports of Israeli dual citizens, and the Dubai security videos of Mossad operatives in various costumes, not to mention the jubilant affirmation by top Israeli leaders of the killing, was in reality ‘Arab tricks’. This crude propaganda ploy by the most prominent Jewish American organization reveals their own descent into a fantasy land of self-delusion, possible only in the closed world of US Zionist politics.
(5) Technical Proficiency
The DA published several articles praising the technical details of the Mossad assassination in Dubai, an aspect of the operation, with which few Israel security experts would agree. The Feb. 24 DA article entitled, “Assassination Shows Skillful Planning” chastises Israel’s critics for not recognizing the high quality of the “operational aspects” of the killings and recommends its “lessons for all intelligence services around the world”. Like sociopaths and serial killers, US Zionists openly promote Israeli death squad techniques to all fellow state terrorists. In the DA, professional techniques of assassination are far more important than universal moral repugnance of political murders.
(6) Discrediting the Investigators While Defending the Perpetrators
The DA on Feb. 25 cited a long and tendentious attack on the Dubai police, published in Forbes Magazine, which ridiculed their meticulous investigations uncovering Mossad’s roles in the murder. In this article, the Dubai authorities were condemned for uncovering Israeli involvement while not investigating the source of the murder victims’ … Iraqi passport! Instead of encouraging the Dubai police pursuit of justice, the Daily Alert published a long diatribe implicating Dubai in the attacks of 9/11/2001, its continued trade with Iran, its ‘involvement’ in international terrorism etc. There was no mention of Dubai’s relatively friendly position to Israel and Israelis prior to Mossad’s blatant violation of its sovereignty.
Conclusion
The American Zionist propaganda campaign in defense of Israeli state terror and, specifically, Mossad’s murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai, relies on lies, evasions and specious legal arguments. This “defense” violates all precepts of a civilized society as well as the most recent American federal laws prohibiting all forms of support for international terrorism. The PMAJO can pursue its defense of Mossad’s acts of international terrorism with impunity in the US because of its power over the US Congress, the Obama White House and the American mass media. This ensures that only its version of events, its definition of legality and its lies will be heard by legislators, echoed by Zionist activists and embellished by its solemn defenders in academic and journalistic circles. To counter the American Zionist defense of Israel’s practice of extra-territorial, extra-judicial executions by the Mossad, we need American writers and academics to step forward. It is time to expose their flimsy arguments, bold-face lies and audacious immorality. It is time to speak out against their impunity, before another Israeli secret police murder takes place, possibly inside the USA itself and with the shameless complicity of Zionist accomplices.
The authorities in Dubai have found clear evidence that the Mossad assassination team received support from European Zionists. The hotels, air tickets and expenses were paid with credit cards issued in the US. Two of the killers may be in the US now. Will a time come when American Zionists, who are unconditional public defenders of Mossad killings, cross the line between propaganda for the deed to become accomplices of the deed? The robust American Zionist defense of Mossad’s overseas assassinations does not augur well for the security of Americans in the face of Israel’s willing U.S. accomplices.


http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/mossad...itation-3/