David Miliband's statement re Mossad and Dubai

And; todays meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with Ambassador Ron Prosor and the officials there:-

"Well done Ron! Great job! perhaps you'd have your guys give our MI5&6 some tips on how this whole espionage game works.
Next time though, please don't use UK passports, that was a bit embarrasing.
Some more coffee?

You are both hilarious!

Briefing for Ron Prosor before he goes to the Foreign Office today:

1. It could have been an operation by factions within terrorist groups

2. The US kills Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan with unmanned drones so let's not have any hypocritical cant about 'extrajudicial killings'

3. Read 'Operation Mincemeat' to see that the UK too has used forged passports in intelligence operations.

The latest scoop is that the guy choked to death while trying to pronounce his own name.

Mahmud El Mabkhukh - try saying it 3 times quickly.

Gordon Brown: "I can categorically state that the Israelis - if indeed it was the Israelis - were completely unjustified in stealing the passports of British citizens. I know that I speak for all sides of the House when I say that it was unjustified because the Israelis - if indeed it was them - had only to ask us and we would have gladly made a score or more UK passports - virgin passports - available for their use. We know that like ourselves they are waging a war against terror, and we are also sure that other western governments would have similarly helped the Israelis - if indeed it was them - because the key point is that in the struggle against terror we must all stand or fall together."

(Well, maybe I misheard Gordy, but even as I type George Galloway, introduced by the BBC News as "the Palestinian rights campaigner" is telling viewers that Gordy didn't condemn Israel strongly enough. He's also cited the Goldstone Report against "the rogue state").

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001090.html

Tom Gross is a Middle East commentator with excellent sources

"Many governments wanted Mabhouh out of the way, not only Israel. Sources confirm to me that the missiles Mabhouh was procuring from the Iranians had the capability of hitting central Tel Aviv, and were Hamas to use such missiles later this year, the Israeli response might lead to a region-wide conflagration, which many Western and Arab governments want to avoid."

I wonder why Bowen and the BBC hasn't told us that!

I think he fancies you, Jonathan. He hangs on your every word. Just make sure it's not your coat-tails! ;~]]

Jonathan appears to be the go-between for the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Ron Pros-Or. Have communications between the ambassador and his bosses broken down so much?

Ooooh, Moshe, you crafty boogah! Edited your post so it's poking mine in the rear, I see!

It is quite extraordinary the way way you all love the blood lust of this killing. How would you feel if Madame Livni or any of the other murderers of the 1400 Palestinians had been killed by a hit squad?

But to strike a lighter more concessionary note I once did speak to Ron Prosor at a famous British venue where I work. Being politically poles apart I kept off the Israel subject and actually had quite a decent sort of conversation with him.
Maybe my fellow contributors we should do that as well. what subjects would you choose?

"what subjects would you choose?"

Tennis:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8522255.stm

Shahar Peer has reached the semi-final of the Dubai Open Tennis ........

not sure about Tom Gross 'excellent sources' it appears a very thinly veiled attempt to try and get Israel for the hook for the assassination?

Surely, this is one case where you must accept the Israeli politicians were actually responsible for something bad, rather than as per usual denying they have ever done anything that wasn't wonderful. Its not a crime to criticise the Israeli government when its merited

sorry, i mean, lets talk about the snow

"what subjects would you choose?"

music

Daniel Barenboim takes Palestinian citizenship

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/944235.html

its a bit rubbish, the snow i mean

Channel Four News had a former Mossad agent called Igra on, as well as Ming Campbell. Igra argued that it couldn't have been Mossad, since these guys appeared to want to be photographed, etc. At least Channel Four presented the case that it might not have been Israel, as did Sky. Unlike the biased BBC, naturellement.

So if it wasn't Israel maybe it was Iceland!!

Mazal Tov, Shahar Peer! She's one plucky lady.

No, not Iceland, Tom. The passport holders' mums went to Iceland.

Speaking of which, how's Iain these days, Moshe?
Got a touch of laryngitis, perhaps?

It was Mossad,

next blog please

A satirical page in Yediot today says that since two tennis-players in Dubai were purported to have been Mossad agents, all Shachar Peer's opponents are now afraid to beat her ...

An Excellent Kill -- Behind the Hamas-honcho hit
By BENNY AVNI
(NY Post, 19 February 2010)

It looked a bit like a low-budget Jason Bourne movie, but it was real: The police chief in the gulf emirate of Dubai this week walked reporters through camera footage of the Jan. 20 assassination of a top Hamas arms runner, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in a posh hotel.

Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim raged of the killing as "the way of the mob, not the country." Actually, it's one of the best ways for any country to fight the "mob" of modern terror.

Aided by time stamps on the dramatic footage from cameras at the Dubai airport and al Bustan Rotana Hotel, Tamim presented a compelling recreation of the "crime" and released pictures and names of the suspected assassins as they appeared in their British, Irish, French and German passports.

Almost everyone thinks it was the Mossad, of course; the operation was that smooth. It took the Dubai police 11 days to even determine that Mabhouh didn't die of natural causes -- and they're still not sure whether he was electrocuted, poisoned, strangled or all of the above. And the assassination team had left the country before anyone even knew he was dead.

Closed-circuit cameras and computerized personal data may make a quiet, old-fashioned killing more difficult -- but the operatives' disguises (phony glasses, beards, etc.) and fake passports seem good enough that they'll never be caught.

Dubai is a hub of spy intrigue that some compare to Cold War-era Berlin. And while Chief Tamim is upset (the assassination comes atop a recent spate of murders in Dubai), this "victim" deserved his fate.

Mabhouh was a terror bigwig. A Hamas founder, he escaped Gaza 20 years ago after Israel tried to kill him for his role in kidnapping and killing two soldiers. He then became Hamas' top foreign-arms dealer, securing the flow of missiles and rockets from Iran to the strip.

That, it's generally thought, is what moved him to the top of the Mossad's target list.

Far from "the way of the mob," as Tamim contended, such assassinations are a legitimate way of inserting some symmetry into asymmetrical warfare.

Of course, as we saw in the cartoonish portrayal of the Mossad in Steven Spielberg's "Munich," the left is horrified by the nuanced morality involved in pursuing and killing top terrorists. (UN types call it "extrajudicial killing.")

Interpol put the suspects on its most-wanted list, and Eurpopean countries demanded an explanation from Israel, knowing full well that none would be forthcoming. All of which has reawakened the Israeli debate over targeted killings, with critics calling for longtime Mossad chief Meir Dagan to resign.

Yet Hamas ignores all law and morality in its regular killings. Via guns, rockets and suicide bombs, it slaughters far more civilians -- Arabs as well as Jews -- than soldiers. Its leaders deserve whatever death can be dealt them.

"No tool in the War on Terror is more justifiable" than assassinations like Mabhouh's, says Boaz Ganor, executive director of the Institute for Counter Terrorism, a leading Israeli think tank. (He says he doesn't know who carried out the operation.) The Obama administration has itself proudly stepped up the use of drones to assassinate top terrorists in Afghanistan.

Western theorists increasingly see the targeting of top terror leaders as a vital weapon. Once an able intelligence agency identifies and locates the target, Ganor says, you can drop a bomb on his head or use a drone, for a slightly more accurate assassination.

But none of those methods is as effective as a daring operation, like the one in Dubai, in ensuring that the only casualty is the high-value target and that no civilians are endangered.

As a plus, the (unwanted) publicity Tamim brought to the case boosts the Mossad's rep -- and ensures that terror bigwigs will spend extra resources on avoiding Mabhouh's fate.

Plus, the flow of Hamas arms is, at least temporarily, seriously disrupted. Despite the post-op complications, not bad for a day's work.