Newsweek has a fascinating article about the ongoing developments in the case of the Al-Mabouh assassination. Poland recently arrested an accused Mossad fixer when he attempted to enter the country. His arrest was requested by Germany because of the agent’s participation in a scheme to secure a passport for one of the Mossad agents who murdered Al-Mabouh.
Israel has protested the arrest and asked Poland to return him to Israel and Germany to quash its extradition request. It will be a test of international resolve to see whether Germany and Poland have the courage of their convictions and go forward with this process. If they wish to honor the concept of accountability and national sovereignty which was violated by the Israeli “hit,” then they must not accede to Israeli pressure. We’ll see if they do.
Frankly, I’m a bit surprised that the Mossad would allow agents implicated in the Dubai assassination to return to their normal hunting grounds. Wouldn’t you think they’d keep those individuals under wraps for a time until the dust settled? To me, this is yet another mark of the Israeli intelligence apparatus’ disconnect from reality–at least reality outside Israel.
The world doesn’t appreciate what the Mossad did in Dubai. England expelled the agency’s station chief. Ireland and Australia did as well. Yet Israel somehow thinks it got a wink and a nod and that the whole thing will blow over. I don’t think that’s the case.
I wonder whether the arrest of the agent in Poland may have something to do with Bibi Netanyahu’s decision, announced yesterday, that Meir Dagan, the Mossad’s director, will not be reappointed to his job. I was amused by the fact that one of the candidates being bruited about is none other than Yuval Diskin, the current Shin Bet director. It appears that beating up Israeli Palestinian citizens and criminalizing the legal political activity of Israeli Palestinian leaders stands one in good stead to become Israel’s top international spook.
The passage from this article that really pricked my ears was this:
Official and unofficial spy aficionados are still puzzled over why Israel would ruin its previously friendly relationship with authorities in a key Gulf emirate, and blow the identities of so many undercover operatives, just to eliminate an obscure Hamas operative. One theory gaining support among intelligence experts is that Mossad’s intent was to drug and kidnap Mabhouh, and then try to use him in a trade for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza by Hamas. But the Israelis, according to this theory, may have overdosed their target on knockout drops.
While a theory gaining support among anonymous intelligence experts doesn’t carry much journalistic weight, it is a suggestive one. It does seem especially stupid for Israel to expose half its covert ops personnel and render them unusable in future in their former capacity. Not to mention the international opprobrium that has attached to Israel for the murder, the loss of all those stations chiefs, and harm done to its relations with all the countries whose passports and citizens were abused. Not to mention the exposure of how the agency handles financing of its international ops.
While Israel has a long and honored tradition of knocking off Hamas operatives, it also has a long tradition of kidnapping Palestinians and Lebanese to use as poker chips in negotiations for the release of Israeli prisoners. So it’s hard to say which motivation was more likely at play in Dubai.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Mossad boss heads for exit after Dubai murder fallout (independent.co.uk)
- Israel forced to defend ‘Mossad spy’ arrested in Poland (telegraph.co.uk)
waiting for your investigation into the identity theft perpetrated by Mossad, and the possible abuse of rights involved in reaching such state of the art technology (medical and otherwise for the kidnapping).
I like the theory of kidnapping. There is, however, a question of: why did they left the body? If they were all set up for drugging and kidnapping, why leave the evidence of murder? With no body, the whole affair was perfectly deniable. Were they so deluded in their belief in their own invincibility that they had no procedures for any of the hundred of “but what if”s?
The whole thing still stinks to high heaven. Nothing was ever said about the US bank that provided credit cards to the Mossad agents, or whether this was even under investigation. I’m wondering if there is anything Israel will ever be held to account for, or whether we’re going to be seeing further escalations of lawlessness and lunacy in the future.
possibly the latter, mary. But looking at Israel alone is very convenient, not useful though. The Mabhuh MO has been applied before, all the time, with the encounragement of foreign government who saw, approved and covered up. Mainly they covered up for the gross violations of civil and human rights of the Israelis whose identities, property, dignity and many times life have been deprived by Mossad. I have personally witnessed the “deals” done by foreign governments (in my case cAnada) when they had the opportunity to do otherwise, without risk. there still is a major cover up, as we dont hear or see anything happening with the Brittish;/Aussie investigation of identities theft. We do know the victims are not getting any assistance. Same has happened with New Zealand fiasco. While New Zealand took some diplomatic measures, it failed dramatically to get into the details and make sure that innocent people are not harmed. As you recall the masters of the failure returned to israel and assumed lucratives jobs in the business community, and very publictly so, to send a message to israelis and to the world, that these are formal HEROES, regardless of their MO over there (and their apparent operational failure). One has to transcend “collective punishment” with respect to Israelis as well, and demand of Israel specific responses to “what happened to this or that person”, who were at risk by Mossad, by way of exploitation and abuse. No western government did that, except in cases when the israeli victim of Mossad had a second citizenship, and where they had rights. I think Australia make an exception and granted Meir Vanunu (the brother of…), asylum over there. But that was also compatible with Mossad’s wishes to get him away from Israel.
Cant eat the cake and leave it full, if u want to make sure Mabhuh assassinations don’t happen, you have to get to the nitty details of how Mossad is operating WIthin Israel.
“Frankly, I’m a bit surprised that the Mossad would allow agents implicated in the Dubai assassination to return to their normal hunting grounds. Wouldn’t you think they’d keep those individuals under wraps for a time until the dust settled? To me, this is yet another mark of the Israeli intelligence apparatus’ disconnect from reality–at least reality outside Israel.”
I think you are suprised, because you get the case wrong.
Uri Brodsky is seemingly a REAL identiy and not an agent’s name (do you really think Mossad is so stupid to send an agent with the unsuspicious name of “Uri” around the world?).
(I wrote about this in my blog in German.)
The German quite played a trick on Israel and a quite nasty one, since they were emotionally enranged. They were looking for the Israeli Uri Brodsky, yes? So why don’t they issue an interpol arrest warrant to Israel for Uri Brodsky? No, no. They do something else. They even don’t file an interpol arrest warrant, like the SPIEGEL had claimed. Check out the Interpol website and you won’t find any Uri Brodsky warrant there.
Nope, they issue a very strange arrest warrant that nobody has until now any details (like date and place of issue, name of wanted person etc.) that is so secret and so public that Israel and the Mossad does not notice. I issued a request to the Bundesstaatsanwaltschaft to get only the basic information like the date of the arrest warrant (one hour before the arrest? one day? or three months?) without an answer so far… 😉
More… http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,8024193,Za_co_scigany_jest_Uri_Brodsky.html#ixzz0sOAxI08e
“Our prosecutor office is representing before the court the interests of German law enforcement. German prosecutor office obtained, on April 13, European Arrest Warrant (Polish acronym ENA) from the Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe for the arrest of Uri Brodsky.”
Clearly, if the arrest warrant had to be in an official computer system to trigger the arrest at Warsaw airport. And the Polish prosecutors have to know “basic information” to file the paperwork. If the superiors of the suspect were not notified, well, you live by professional courtesy, you die by professional courtesy. I mean, cosy arrangements may cease to be cosy without notice.
Piotr, thanks! That was helpful. I guess your last sentence is right, although one more question:
Another point with the arrest warrant is, on which name it was issued. It could be issued on Uri Brodsky or e.g. on an alias, like alias Bodenheimer alias Michael or alias Verin alias Alexander etc.. Does the formulation in the Polish sources quoted above “for the arrest of Uri Brodsky” mean without doubt that the arrest warrant was on the name “Uri Brodsky” or could it also be an arrest warrant that was on another name, but he was arrested since he is that person?
Since, if it is not the name, I asked myself, why the Germans don’t want to give more information on the arrest warrant and if e.g. Uri would be the real agent behind Michael Bodenheimer and Germany would make it public, things would change quite a bit and Dubai would ask for a trial in Dubai…
Interested in your response.
Not sure you will ever know who that person is and why he was arrested, clearly it was a big fish, following which Dagan resigned finally. It means that this person is significant, not necessarily in the order it was published. This is the nature of the game. I’ve seen german intel make indirect arrest happen in Canada -US border, in order to get info from israeli citizen who was only related to an agent, but there was no way to arrest her legally, so they made a very sophisticated spider web through customs, clearly fooling the canadian border agency, and got hold of the documents they were after. Of course in these cases nobody admits anythings, but stuff moves from hand to hand, by way of ‘deals’ and extortion.
Interpol has Israeli workers who will report anything back to Israel, even if they will never admit that.
What it means is that GERMAN intel-gov was determined to get dagan out of office. why ? probably not the reasons we can even speculate on. I would imagine though that the passport scam was a major reason. No government likes that situation, and Mossad has been continuously doing that despite various understandings and obligations. I think its funny that only germany could relieve us from this tyrant who abused so many Israelis…
history is ironical.
First of all, I am happy Dagan saved my skin for the last years and he did a great job. He got Munije, the Syrian nuke plant, mabchuch and many many things we even don’t know. Thanks for that, you made Israel safer, Dagan.
To the Germans:
“No government likes that situation, and Mossad has been continuously doing that despite various understandings and obligations.”
Correct and there were SEVERAL countries that Israel seemingly used their passports, just think of the Britains, Irish etc. with many passports, they did not arrest or ask for arrest of NOBODY! Only the Germans with ONE single invloved passport whose agent even was not on the Dubai tapes… 😉
And we all know that all Western services work more or less together, use each others passports and even ‘rent’ those passports. Nobody did a really big deal. The Australian opposition even spoke out in favor of Israel. Which is also understandable, since this was an assasination of a number one terrorist. Only the Germans started to deep dig and don’t tell a word to their Israeli ‘friends’…
Tell it to the Palestinian widows & orphans he’s left behind, not to mention the wrecked relations with several major EU countries.
No, he made it safer for a substratum of Israelis called Jews. As for the rest of the world, he made it quite a bit less safe, more volatile and more prone to war. Let’s see you say the same thing if Hezbollah ever gets a chance to take its revenge for Mugniyeh & al-Mabouh.
You appear to be neglecting the 3 Mossad station chiefs expelled fr. London, Ireland and Australia. I suppose they could’ve arrested them instead of deporting them. Would that have satisfied you that those nations were pissed as hell at Israel?
You’re so full of crap I can’t begin to count the ways. If it wasn’t a big deal why the ejections of the station chiefs? As far as I’m concerned you’re either a friend of Uri Brodsky or those he works for or you might just as well be. Hasbara all the way.
Says who? Uri Brodsky? Meir Dagan? Who are you anyway? Your bulls(&t is starting to smell like MFA or Mossad propaganda. Who briefed you today btw?
Maybe Dagan is too reasonable for Bibi. Didn’t Dagan recently say Israel is becoming a strategic liability for the U.S.?
“Tell it to the Palestinian widows & orphans he’s left behind, not to mention the wrecked relations with several major EU countries.”
Sorry that we kill the people, who want to kill us. Sorry to defend myself. Sorry to live. The EU relations were not really effected by the fallout except for possibly Germany.
“No, he made it safer for a substratum of Israelis called Jews.”
No for all, but also for Jews and that is a GOOD THING. Do i have to feel bad, if I want to live and the Jewish people to live? Are you a Jew?
“As for the rest of the world, he made it quite a bit less safe, more volatile and more prone to war. Let’s see you say the same thing if Hezbollah ever gets a chance to take its revenge for Mugniyeh & al-Mabouh.”
Wow! How can you compare terrorists killing civilians and a democracy killing a terrorist?
“You appear to be neglecting the 3 Mossad station chiefs expelled fr. London, Ireland and Australia. I suppose they could’ve arrested them instead of deporting them. Would that have satisfied you that those nations were pissed as hell at Israel?”
They had to do something to show that they were not invovled and ‘angry’ on Israel, nope. Everything worked, except for Germany.
“You’re so full of crap I can’t begin to count the ways. If it wasn’t a big deal why the ejections of the station chiefs?”
That was the least they had to do to show their ‘anger’.
“As far as I’m concerned you’re either a friend of Uri Brodsky or those he works for or you might just as well be. Hasbara all the way.”
In case he works for the Mossad and Medinat Israel, then, yes I feel very much connected to this guy that sits in prinson to save my and my families lives.
“Says who? Uri Brodsky? Meir Dagan? Who are you anyway? Your bulls(&t is starting to smell like MFA or Mossad propaganda. Who briefed you today btw?”
Says international press, or are they also a part of the big Jewish-Mossad-conspiricay in your mind?
Including the thousands of Palestinian civilians who your military kills? Did they want to kill you to?
I throw it back at you. What kind of Jew is proud of killing Palestinians? Proud of a military that commits war crimes and is ostracized by the world?
You’re an absolute idiot. The entire assassination plot was botched. Half the Mossad’s covert ops crew was compromised & identified, Dagan was sacked, 3 station chiefs were sent home w. their tails bet. their legs & you say “Nope, everything’s honky dory.” Like I just said, an idiot.
What international press are you reading? Every single paper in the world except for the most right wing pro Israel ones denounced this operation vocally. Interpol may have arrest warrants of Dagan & Bibi & you say the world is with you? What are you smokin’??
Ulrich, if u trust Dagan (after this performance still) to “save” your family from enemies, then you have a serious problem. Not unlike many Israelis or Jews who suffer from Battered wife syndrom and allow conmen to take over their lives (eg, Madoff, in the economic field).
That’s very sad, I think.
If the lid flies off, people will know more.
Others, who know and still spread the kind of propaganda you spell out here, are cynical at best and betray the trust of their own flock.
I don’t know what kind of human being would condone an “extrajudicial killing,” and claim to stand for democracy and human rights. The hypocrisy of some people is just beyond the pale, especially when it concerns the racist attitude that this kind of thing is OK if it protects “Jews.”
What right do “Jews” or anyone else have to decide their lives are worth more than someone else’s, especially when it concerns murdering someone who has not been tried or convicted of a crime? Sixty years ago someone decided they would be judge, jury and executioner to the Jewish people; does that give “Jews” the right to do the same to Palestinians?