השב”כ משקר בפרשת עריק החמאס
The IDF announced today that it had discovered a second major tunnel leading from Gaza towards Israeli territory. The exposure of this tunnel, like that of the first one reported recently came, according to my Israeli security source, as the result of the defection of a senior Hamas commander, Sami Atawna, age 29.
This has not stopped IDF Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the prime minister and defense minister from lying to the public, claiming sophisticated new tunnel detection techniques and systems have uncovered these excavation projects. Take Isabel Kershner’s entirely too credulous reporting:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the discovery, saying, “the state of Israel has achieved a global breakthrough in the ability to locate tunnels.”
Describing the breakthrough as “unique,” but without providing any details of the technology involved, Mr. Netanyahu added, “The government is investing considerable capital in countering the tunnel threat. This is an ongoing effort that will not end overnight.”
This is all utter nonsense. They didn’t find the tunnels due to technology or equipment. They did it through one of the oldest tricks known to intelligence services: defection. Interestingly, Yossi Melman reported (Hebrew) in recent days that the IDF has spent $250-million on its tunnel eradication projects since the 2014 war. It would seem to have little to show for it.
You’d think that the Shabak would reward such a figure for the service he provided to the State of Israel. Usually, intelligence services are willing to offer serious blandishments to defectors who give such valuable information. But not Israel, apparently. Today, the State prosecutor announced it was charging Atawna (Hebrew) with a plot that is so wild and implausible that it can be discounted out of hand. He is accused of grabbing two knives and crossing the Israeli border to wage an attack on Israeli forces.
So this is what Shabak would have us believe: a Hamas tunnel engineer, one of the most critical jobs in Gaza, who commands a large crew, decides on the spur of the moment to abandon his job, his comrades, and grabs two knives and crosses the border to wreak vengeance on Israel. Then, it just so happens that this tunnel engineer is captured on his way to stab Israeli soldiers, and coincidentally knows the identity of two major tunnels, which he voluntarily reports to Shabak. What a fortuitous accident that such bounty should fall into Shabak’s hands unsolicited. It makes as much sense as the plot of Godfather III.
There are numerous reasons the story is a ruse: first, no Gazan has crossed the border to attack any Israeli during the current round of hostilities. Second, Atawna was criticial figure in Hamas’ tunnel building operation. Such people do not suddenly develop delusions that they will abandon their lives and become martyrs by knifing an Israeli. He was not a teenager with nothing to lose, as almost all of the other Palestinian attackers have been.
So if the story has been concocted, why has it been and what is the true story? That’s harder to pin down. An alternate story circulating says that Atawna was kidnapped by Israel, rather than defected. The cover story might be devised to protect Israel from any charge that it had invaded Gaza territory to commit this kidnapping.
But the most likely story is that it was invented in order to protect Atawna’s family from retribution at the hands of Hamas. The weakness of this explanation is that Hamas must know something about Atawna’s disappearance. If he had been kidnapped, someone would’ve seen something and reported it. If he had voluntarily crossed the border to kill Israelis, someone would likely have seen him. If he had defected, it’s more possible this might have been concealed from Hamas. But even the secretive nature of such a disappearance would give rise to suspicion that he defected, rather than was kidnapped. And so, what benefit would this be to his family?
My Israeli security source says: ” “It’ll probably end in a plea deal, But Atawna will serve years in prison. After all, a terrorist defector is still a terrorist. And beside this – if we just let him go, Hamas will know for sure he betrayed them.”
This is where I lose faith either in the story being offered or in Israel’s treatment of Atawna. I suppose the proof will be in how the prosecution is conducted, how long his sentence is and how he is treated in prison. But one thing is for certain, if he goes anywhere in the Israeli prison system there will be hundreds of Hamas prisoners who will be happy to pay him back for his betrayal. Therefore, I don’t understand the Israeli decision to prosecute, even if they are trying to conceal his defection.
I’ve also considered the possibility that despite the information Atawna offered, he may’ve either betrayed the Shabak or done something of which they disapproved. His prosecution may be payback for that. Though this doesn’t seem a very strong possibility.
If he receives a light sentence and is isolated in the prison system to protect him from retaliation, then we will know the real truth of this story.
Qalandiya Murders
Israel announced today that it was investigating the murder of a young Palestinian mother and her teenage brother at the Qalandiya checkpoint. They were shot and killed by private security guards employed by the Public Security ministry. The guards, according to eyewitness accounts, were 60 feet away from the victims when they were mowed down, and not under any physical threat. The witnesses also claim the killers planted knives on their bodies after the murders.
Though the case is under gag order, I’ve discovered that the killers were employed by an Israeli private security company, Modiin Ezrachi (“Civilian Intelligence”). If you are an Israeli reader of this blog, no matter your politics, I urge you to call for accountability and a transparent investigation (which is highly unlikely). I am hoping to be able to identify the killer. But the gag order stands in my way at this time.
Very good story. The detail (shooters were 60 feet away from victims) would seem to suggest that the shooters (at least — were other Israelis present, closer?) were not in danger and had no reason (as some would determine “reason”) to shoot the victims.
CHANGE OF PACE:
Do you, RS, or any other readers of this blog, see junk-text to right of main blog text just above the brown box that says SUBSCRIBE, choose one, [box] per post etc.? I see this stuff nd wish it would go away or be replaced by whatever it is supposed to be (Java script?)
!doctype html> html> head> style> !– a:link { color: #000000 }a:visited color: #000000 }a:hover { color: #000000 }a:active { color: #000000 } –> /style> script> !– function ){var b this;var f String.prototype.trim?function a){return a.trim )}:function )
ETC ETC ETC.
I don’t have that.
@ pabelmont: No, I don’t see that. Which browser are you using? And which platform? PC or mobile?
Why is Israel ‘shameworthy’ *ring*, for lying, but Hamas is blameless for tunneling into Israel and violating Israel’s territorial sovereignty?
I would imagine it’s a question of defence, Israel having stolen all those lands.
@ Bernie X: Hamas is blameless for tunneling toward Israel because Israel violates Gaza sovereignty at will & thousands of times per decade, if not more. If Israel doesn’t respect borders it deserves no respect for its own. Plain & simple.
@Richard
I think Hamas wants more from Israel than inviolate borders.
This is not lie but providing disinformation. Huge difference.
On top of that, you offer no proof whatsoever to this theory of yours.
And… you put his family in danger by blowing off this kind of guts feelings you have.
I just do see the point.
@ Ginger: “No proof” except for an extremely reliable Israeli security source whose been proven correct hundreds of times over the past years.
Reading your piece again, I see my mistake.
Yet, it is hard to tell where you base info on source and where it is just your wild theories
@ Ginger: What’s truly “wild” is Israeli policy, racism & dysfunction. My “theories” are far more credible & evidence-based than the Israeli reality I report on.
BTW, often my source will not permit to offer something credited to him. So I must offer it as my own apeculation. So in effect a security source has offered me entirely credible information which you label “wild theories.”
If my theories were as wild & baseless as you claim you wouldn’t be here.
Often, you connect the dots between information points in a way that can be described as either ridiculous or stupid.
A good example is the Syrian refugee camp which placed inside Israel with a few keyboard strokes.
I’m here with my 10th username b/c I enjoy seeing to what length you go to bash Israel. I find it amazing and amusing.
Mahmoud “Sami” Atawna,
Is this the same person???
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced on Thursday that it has obtained a treasure trove of information after capturing a Hamas member who sneaked into Israel with the intention of killing Israelis.
Mahmoud Atauna, 29, from Jabalya in the Gaza Strip, was arrested on April 16.
Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Shin-Bet-gleans-vast-tunnel-data-from-Hamas-member-453244
@ bobyleff: Yes the same person. With the same lame, bogus cover story.
Richard, thanks for this very good impression and excellent blog.
I just wonder why I never hear about eventual finger prints on the “knives or scissors” around the “attack”.
It seems to me that it will be pretty hard to falsify those fingerprints with all the attention around . Don’t you?
What is also difficult to understand is, that these knives which IDF and Israeli Police like to present as evidence in their pictures are in most cases clean and without any blood stains. Clean, even the knives were claimed to be used to cut Jews and the holder was shot, often using several bullets which also is bloody. Somehow miraculously the knife always flies over one meter away of the body and is clean and looking brand new. Picture released by the Israeli Police of the knifes in Qalandiya “attack”.
In this Qalandiya murder case Israeli police refuses to release the video of the events.. WHY, often it is done even any inspection begins. Well we know the answer = it did not happen so as the Israeli side claimed.
Also it is impossible to understand why Palestinians would so often with a little knife “attack” several of heavily armed soldiers BEHIND concrete barricades several meters away. The possibility of such attack is zero. Israel should carry out revenge attacks on Palestinians, rightist MK says . Hmmmm….
Israeli Jewish “security” forces, private and public must nowadays have as anew obligatory accessory – one or two “evidence knives”- in their outfit pockets. They obviously also have a gadget which makes the IDF cameras around the check points to go to a “service break” when wanted/needed.
No it is not hard at all, as the investigations into these killings are a total joke. The soldiers or police even put the knives there themselves when none can be found. (Even a huge army knife in the car of an old lady going out to meet her friends for lunch… Absolutely ludicrous.)
“Israeli soldiers are almost never prosecuted for killings in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said yesterday after finding over the past 15 years, no officers were indicted for murder, and only one soldier was convicted of homicide in the case of the killing of a foreign national.
No soldiers were charged with homicide in the slaying of Palestinians during the period of September 2000 to November 2015. In this time frame Israeli forces KILLED MORE THAN 5,500 Palestinians and ten foreign nationals in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, according to the human rights group B’tselem (this figure excludes casualties from both the 2009 and 2014 wars in Gaza).”
– See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/israeli-forces-have-killed-over-5500-palestinians-in-the-last-15-years-and-not-one-solider-has-been-prosecuted/#sthash.mHmibAiw.dpuf
Thanks Elisabeth.
For completeness, I did mean, when there are no fingerprints on the “knives”, these “knives” cannot have been used by the Palestinians, so that means officially that they are false evidence.
I think I misunderstood what you were trying to say. Sorry about that.
“obtained a treasure trove of information” after the capture of Atawna.. If this Shin Bet story were true the main advance in the detection of tunnel technology might in fact be another advance in the technology of torture. – a field in which Israel can boast other firsts.
I thought about that too 🙂 I read some IDF-hasbara parrot, Peter Lerner or one of his clones, saying that the discovery of the tunnel was a combination of different factors, one of them being new technology that he couldn’t reveal ….. ‘torture’ I thought right away.
“But the gag order stands in my way at this time.”
This seems to be a routine experience; but as far as I know, when police, secret service , and/or prosecutorsinvestigate, they try to keep things under cover, also in Germany……
@ Bobyleff: No western country has more gag orders or censorship than Israel. They have so many they can’t even keep track.