I’ve written here about as assassination and attempted assassination in Teheran a few days ago, which Haaretz’ Yossi Melman attributes to the Mossad. In these cases, the two scientists were driving in their cars to work with their wives. They’d pulled into the university parking lot when a motorscooter pulled alongside and the driver threw a magnetic bomb at the driver side window, pulled away and then detonated his device. In one case, the victim was killed; in the second, he was seriously injured.
Compare this account to the following from a May 15, 2009 Wikileaks cable:
In November 2008…Yaakov Alperon was assassinated in broad daylight in a gruesome attack on the streets of xxxx, only about a mile away from the Embassy. According to several media accounts, a motor scooter pulled up alongside Alperon’s car and the rider attached a sophisticated explosive device with a remote detonator to the car door. The bomb killed Alperon and his driver, and injured two innocent pedestrians. The hit was the latest in a series of violent attacks and reprisals, and indicated a widening…war…
What’s the difference? In the first case, criminality was used to pursue state policy. In the second case, criminality was used in pursuit of the ends of Israeli organized crime. In fact, the U.S. embassy cable includes this telling statement:
…The old school of Israel OC [organized crime] is giving way to a new, more violent, breed of crime…The new style of crime features knowledge of hi-tech explosives acquired from service in the Israeli Defense Forces…
This invokes one of the most profound insights of the film, M, that is, that the forces of the state and laws that govern them are sometimes no different than those of the criminals they pursue. Where do we think Israeli criminals learn their “skills?” In killing Palestinians of course while serving their nation. These two passages prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this experience is exploited for corrosive effect within Israeli society. Bringing the Occupation back home with a vengeance.
The entire cable linked above is instructive reading in terms of educating one about the penetration of organized crime into many corners of Israeli life and world commerce. One claim I find hard to believe is the following:
It is not entirely clear to what extent OC elements have penetrated the Israeli establishment and corrupted public officials. The INP [Israeli National Police] insists that such instances are rare, despite the occasional revelation of crooked police officers in the press.
In fact, the Israeli police are widely regarded by Israelis as corrupt, brutish and ineffective. In some regard, it doesn’t matter whether organized crime has penetrated the ranks. It might as well have considering how useless the cops are there. Besides the tour de force blog post written by Eyal Clyne which documents scores of incidents of police mayhem as reported in the Israeli media, note that only 41% of Israelis have full or partial confidence in the police. In a 2009 Gallup poll, 59% of Americans expressed full or partial confidence in their police. Israeli is a country in which the rule of law is a concept but not a reality. And a good part of the reason for this is the debilitating effect of the Occupation on every aspect of Israeli society.
richard,
sometimes one plus one does not equal two
in your analysis of israeli organized crime, you left out a part of the equation…that is, the influence of the russian mob…who are by all accounts more violent than other organized crime groups
The Russian mobs are often ethnic/religiously based, no doubt about that. The big question is how much Israel imported criminality to Russia/Soviet states and how much vice versa. Let’s remember that amount of Russian Jews living there is now 275,000 and was in 1993 less than 400,000. The Russian Jewish Mafias became strong when their members fetched knowledge and capital from Israel and USA.
After Soviet Union collapsed the new tycoons (oligarchs) who emerged were in most cases Jews. Quite an achievement for a tiny minority and certainly an achievement which can not be explained by their natural skills and intellect. The most influential and exposed oligarchs from the Yeltsin era are Boris Berezovsky (Jewish), Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Jewish), Alex Konanykhin, Mikhail Fridman (Jewish), Vladimir Gusinsky (Jewish), Vitaly Malkin (Jewish) and Vladimir Potanin. If you analyse the list of Russian billionaires you will notice that a disproportional share of them are Jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Russian_billionaires
No doubt that Jews are often talented business men, but are they so talented that they could make billions when on the same time the rest of the society is starving without committing serious crimes? No they were/are not.
In Soviet Union and Russia the corruption level was/is staggering and to become a multi billionaire in a couple of years is simply impossible without excellent criminal contacts. Semion Mogilevich is considered to be the most influential criminal in the world and the boss of bosses of the Russian Mafia. He is (also) an Israeli citizen and a Jew. So uncle Joe do you agree with your “more violent” theory?
“Hinting” that Israel was crime and Mafia free before the Soviet exodus is hilarious and a sign of that popular “we are the victims” defence. Israelis have been exceptionally “active” in drug trafficking, illegal arms trade and shady gemstone businesses already long before “the Russians” came.
Russian Jews did not create the Israeli criminal clans or racism. Israeli racism existed already before Lieberman even moved to Israel. Surely Lieberman did not learn all of his racism as a member of the allegedly depressed minority during those his 21 soviet years. Certainly the 32 years as a member of the aggressive majority and a ambitious politician have formed his racism more than the Soviet time. So blaming Russia for the Israeli internal “relationships” is as amusing as trying to convince that criminality came with the Russian to Israel.
Don’t be surprised if targets begin putting anti-Magnetic stuff on their doors or driving scooters.
I hit submit too soon. I believe the hit had everything to do with the upcoming nuclear negotiations as well as that fishy document in the first set of leaks about Iranians being unable to negotiate and the singular document showing the US to kowtow to the Shah. It could be that WikiLeaks simply has a CIA informant that is including those one offs in that batch of the leaks, figuring they can also leak stuff to help them posture their current foreign policy.
They are still playing something other than Chess with a regime that ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY plays Chess. They are not going to make a brash move. It’s insane to try this again…but here we go!
Don’t believe anything you read in the cables, they are in fact an Israeli anti-Turkish plot.
Haha.
“the debilitating effect of the Occupation on every aspect of Israeli society.”
Once again, you put the cart before the horse. While I would not deny that what we are watching is a situation that feeds on itself, it is the nature of Israeli society that is at the root of the occupation and colonization of others’ land, not the occupation that has caused Israeli society to be what it is.
What is the “nature of Israeli society” pray do tell?
I’ve spent 8 yrs & written 4,000 posts on this precise subject & you expect me, al regel achat, to answer such a question? I suggest you spend some time here & read my posts & then you’ll get an idea of what that phrase means, at least to me.
A bit reductionist I’d say. I’ve never heard of Mossad using ltr bombs in yrs. Cell phone bombs they mostly save for Palestinians. They are also flexible enough to adapt diff. tactics to diff. circumstances. In Dubai, where they had access to time & privacy to drug & kill al-Mabouh, they used one method. In Teheran, where circumstances are quite diff. they use magnet car bombs. Did something similar in Damascus against Mugniyeh.
Hariri’s assassination is a non sequitur, which means you’re off topic. One of my comment rules is not to stray off topic. Pls. follow the rules.
Another attempt at wit on yr part. Again, lose the wit & snark. Make yr comments & do it straight. I don’t need you to try to show us yr rapier wit. It falls flat. Very flat.
Again, overly simplistic. And if you’re claiming that Iran or an Islamic terror group killed the scientists you’re off yr rocker. But it would give us all a laugh if you want to make a fool of yrself in that way. BTW, Mossad has used bombs to kill 2 Iranian scientists & nearly kill another. I’d say it’s the method of choice currently for Mossad & their comrades inside Iran.
You also have a wee problem in that Yossi Melman, who has far better contacts inside the Mossad than you (or I for that matter), says Mossad is involved in the Teheran killings.
Think in these terms….
Ever watch a good old mafia movie?
Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino? All of them have scenes with exploding cars.
Now think about some of the more obvious Mossad hits, both successful and not (however you want to define them)
Argentina 1960 – A team of covert individuals locate Adolph Eichman and abduct him by sneaking right up to him. No Bombs, no explosives.
Paris 1992 – Atef Bseiso is shot 3 times at close range in the head. Arafat accuses Israel. No bombs, no explosives.
Jordan 1997 – Agents get close enough to Khaled Mashaal to squirt a lethal serum into his ear. No bombs, no expolsions.
UAE 2010 – Senior Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhoud is suffocated in his hotel room.
Does the Mossad use bombs? Sure they do. But their calling card is a targeted precision strike like a cell phone or letter bomb.
Now lets look at the the assassination of Rafiq Hariri…..The UN is fingering Hezbollah and Syrian Agents. Hariri was killed as his motorcade was attacked by a massive bomb. When you think about it, exploding vehicles are the calling card of the Arab/Islamic fundamental terror organizations. Of course as in the Hariri case, Iran was very quick to blame Israel for these attacks.
Two things every child learns and knows…..
1. Think before you ink.
2. Smelt it, dealt it.
I think Iran was very quick to point the proverbial finger that it looks to be pointing back at them.
You’re joking, right?