Robert Fisk’s recent provocative column claiming that Britain may have colluded with the Mossad in the Dubai assassination by providing genuine British passports (rather than the “clones” that are claimed) has been borne out in one small particular.
The Daily Mail reports that the Mossad notified British intelligence before it carried out the al-Mabouh assassination that the killers would be using British passports. But what astonishes is the following absolute temerity of the Israeli attitude:
According to the paper’s source, the [Mossad] tip-off was not a request for permission to use British passports but more a “courtesy call” to let the security services know “a situation” might result from the operation. The Mossad man said Israeli intelligence chiefs understood British authorities would have to “slap them on the wrist” and added:
“The British government has to be seen to be going through the motions.”
If this is true, either the Mossad is the most chutzpadik intelligence agency in the world or it was doing what Britain wanted it to do in killing al-Mabouh. If the latter, this might explain why Dubai informed the British of the passport use and waited in vain for six days for a reply, after which Dubai conducted a press conference and released the information to the public. That silence and delay sure begin to smell fishy.
Another question is: did MI6 keep the Mossad tip from government ministers or did it share it with them? If the former, then the intelligence agency looks even worse and has deeply embarrassed its civilian masters; if the latter then the ministers could be in deep doo-doo as they have stated publicly that they knew nothing of the operation till they were informed of it by Dubai.
The foreign office called Israeli ambassador on the carpet and asked him to cooperate fully with the British investigation. The Daily Mail says pointedly that he “refused to do so.” And yet somehow the Mossad can claim that it’s intelligence cooperation with Britain will not be jeopardized by this muck-up? More effrontery or pure bluffery?
The Daily Mail story also reveals further details about the trap set by the Mossad for al-Mabouh and Palestinian participation in it. If the story is true it will further damage Fatah’s reputation:
Intelligence sources say al-Mabhouh was lured to a meeting in Dubai by two men who had worked with him in Hamas in Gaza. He did not realise they had defected to the more moderate Fatah, bitter enemies of Hamas, and were secretly working with the Israelis.
This would mean that Fatah in some capacity colluded with Israel in order to kill this man. It would mean that Hamas’ efforts to root out Israeli collaborators were justified. It would mean that Fatah betrayed a fellow Palestinian to an enemy of the Palestinians. What possible legitimate purpose (short of cold-blooded revenge) could such collusion serve unless Fatah is completely bankrupt both as a political and national movement?
Dubai’s police chief has asserted he is “99% if not 100% sure” of Mossad’s culpability and said Dubai would call for the arrest of Meir Dagan, the Mossad’s director. In Israel, a Haaretz correspondent has already called for Dagan’s resignation. However, this is unlikely as Dagan is considered by Israelis to be a superb spook doing precisely what the country wants him to do. Here is how Sheera Frenkel characterized his perception in Israel:
“Mossad have renewed the aura that the name Mossad used to generate in the region,” Alon Ben David , an Israeli intelligence analyst, told Israeli radio…
In other words, the problem isn’t Dagan per se, it’s the very national security society and right wing government which placed him in the position to begin with.
Wired provides an interesting critique of the Dubai operation from the perspective of a former Mossad agent. What’s fascinating about this report is it is the only one I’ve read approaching the killing from within the Mossad and with a intelligence agent’s perspective. Among other things Victor Ostrovsky says is:
…The Mossad was likely surprised by how the Dubai authorities pieced everything together so well and publicized the video and passport photos of the suspects.
“Nobody thought that somebody was going to piece that all together,” he said. “After all, who really cares about a guy in Hamas? There’s a perception that . . . the Arab world doesn’t really like Palestinians and that everyone would say it’s just another terrorist killed, great. Nobody’s going to make a fuss.”
He said he’s surprised that Israel would have risked such an operation while the government is in the midst of negotiations to release Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who is reportedly being held prisoner in Gaza by Hamas since June 2006.
“It shocks that they would do [the assassination] now,” Ostrovsky said. “But that’s Netanyahu in my opinion.”
In other words, Bibi doesn’t give a crap about Shalit and is far more motivated by steely hatred of Hamas and any other Arab entity that stands in his way. And in an L.A. Times interview, Ostrovsky amplifies his view that the operation was sloppily executed and explains why this might have happened:
“It’s a rush to action which is meant to show off the long arm of Israeli justice,” he said.
I doubt that Dubai is going to be as easily deterred from pursuing this matter than if it were to have happened anywhere else. Maybe it has finally come to pass that Israel will actually not get away with murder.
I’m still terribly intrigued (and disturbed) by the matters of the passports and the credit cards, and I suspect there won’t be much hope of ever finding out just how those were obtained and by whom. The US and Britain will remain “special friends” of Israel, and all three will once again thumb their noses at international justice.
You keep saying what’s good for the goose is good for the gander but you have your goose and gander confused. Mahbouh is the one that got to taste his own medicine.
And now the Mossad is getting a taste of some bitter medicine it didn’t anticipate. This will happen regularly fr. now on. No more free lunch for Israel when it engages in such shenanigans. Just wait till Interpol puts out an arrest warrant for Meir Degan and all those who planned this operation. That will be a just comeuppance.
For that to happen they would have to actually prove that the Mossad was responsible for this. So far there is no proof. It could have been Britain (real British passports, British nationals), Austria (the central command was in Austria) or a combination of the above or freelancers. Dubai says the have more evidence so we will have to wait and see. Maybe they have full body airport scans proving the men were circumcised.
I just read in the paper that al-Mahbouh was in Dubai on a forged Iraqi passport provided by Syria. Funny, I didn’t hear anybody complain about that.
Literally every credible newspaper and media outlet in the world reports that Mossad was the culprit, but for you there is no proof. There is loads of evidence, convincing, definitive evidence. You just refuse to credit it because of your own pro-Israel bias. Why don’t you revel in the success of your beloved Mossad assassins as any red blooded pro Israel type like you should?? Take pride. Shout it fr. the rooftops. What are you afraid of?
I didn’t say whether I believed the Mossad did it or not. I said that for a court of law, proof is needed. Newspaper reports by unidentified “experts” does not constitute proof. Obviously some of it is deliberate misinformation. Videos of people walking in and out of elevators does not constitute proof. Now obviously if Dubai has proof, details will be forthcoming. Of course, “confessions” by the Palestinians they captured does not constitute proof either unless they provide details that only agents working for Mossad could have known.
The theft of identities, for me, really is the most disturbing part of this story. But we don’t have any proof that Israel is the one who did it since all were British citizens and Britain could have done it as well. Of course, maybe they too work for mossad and when their names were made public claiming their identities were stolen is an act to ensure their own protection. Personally, if I was in their shoes, I would not talk to the press before I spoke to a good lawyer. I probably wouldn’t speak to the press at all and have a lawyer represent me.
Clearly, you have no sense of outrage for the actual murder itself as you should which points up yr tribalism. But at least something about this disturbs you. Though the fact that you’re willing to blame someone other than the Mossad for the identity theft is ludicrous.
Some of these victims do have lawyers. But what recourse can they expect? Going against the Mossad, what will the Israeli system favor? It will be swept under the rug. Perhaps they’ll be provided a sop of some sort to compensate for the aggravation. That’s why the only hope is for this to be pursued internationally & in a united fashion. I hope the EU victim nations band together as Ireland has suggested. In unity there will be strength against the Mossad-Israel juggernaught.
“The Daily Mail reports that the Mossad notified British intelligence before it carried out the al-Mabouh assassination that the killers would be using British passports.”
If the Daily Mail is correct, then the Mossad just copped to the crime. What more proof is needed? And if the Mossad isn’t behind it all, why isn’t Israel raising holy h*ll about the stolen identities of the Israeli citizens?
But, the ultimate proof? Dershowitz, Israel’s consigliere, is insisting that committing murder is not a violation of law. 😉
Dubai is not ready to sit back and watch.I am a little bit confused about the passports and why the British intelligence remained silent and is the government really involved in this or was this just between the MI6 and Israeli’s.
If there ever was a need for an international justice system which “polices the police,” this is it. The fact that so many countries obviously had a hand in this crime speaks to the need to stop this disregard for laws that are meant to protect people. For people we believe are even the most heinous of criminals, there are courts of law to address their crimes. We do not need gangs of thugs going after people all over the world. We have already seen the Mossad kill at least one innocent person in a case of mistaken identity, in the past.
I find it rather ironic that anyone here would defend the Mossad by claiming that there is no “proof” the Mossad committed this act, and that proof is needed in courts of law. Obviously, there was no court of law judging whether al-Mahbouh was guilty of anything, was there?
If it is OK to assassinate “terrorists” by states such as Israel. Is it OK for other states to assassinate “terrorists” such as Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney etc? Much of the world sees these men as terrorists who invaded Iraq — killing hundreds of thousands of people as well as creating millions of refugees — to say nothing of laying waste to the country.
If Great Britain was notified of this assassination, they should now hire extra protection for their leaders.
I don’t think they merely “knew about it,” I think they were involved in it, just as the US is involved. The very same “safety and security” procedures which are supposed to prevent identity theft mysteriously failed both in the passport department, and in issuing US credit cards to the assassins.