generalspeaking

Much Ado....

Question is, why? Yes, it is news, but this kind of hysteria? Obviously the answer is that it is because this involves the State of Israel.

Israel, in the opinion of a growing number of groups and states simply can do no right. Whatever it does is somehow wrong, an affront to humanity. The country has a formidable reputation for insisting it has a right and an obligation to exist and to protect itself from obliteration. That may seem a quaint notion, but within Israel it is an imperative simply because the alternative is so unacceptably final.

Israel's military prowess in the stratagems of warfare has become legendary. Despite a small population it has a dedicated military comprised of individuals vested in the belief their countrymen have human rights that are unassailable by any twisted logic. It has internal and external intelligence agencies whose superlative work in inveigling themselves into positions of trust, infiltrating networks whose purpose is to destroy the country, and engaging in the kind of espionage that gives them advantage to protect themselves has also become the stuff of legend.

That its secret intelligence agencies have been known to mount pre-emptive, defensive and offensive initiatives in their asymmetrical battle against terrorists is well enough known by their daring, enterprise and cunning. Not to mention often-sensational success. The country faces an ongoing battle against adversaries who play by no rules, who satisfy their lust for revenge against what they claim is a foreign interloper, by any means available to them.

And those means include attacking civilian populations with clear intent to cast as wide a murderous net as possible in one fell swoop whereby a suicide bomber will blast himself inside a crowded cafe, a peak-hour bus service, markets, night clubs and wherever people gather in great numbers. The key to these activities is to create shattered lives, fear and chaos and the indelible impression that there is no safety, anywhere.

The international community, those who never have to face these dread occurrences, sit in judgement of a country whose attempts to shield its people from attacks from expected and unexpected quarters alike, from every corner of its territorial borders, have a fixed idea of how a state should react to danger. Strictly within the law in response to lawless adversaries. It sounds very civil and very sedate, but appears highly impractical to achieve the end goal, which is useful defence.

If a murderer is left to continue his ravages whenever and wherever he is able to mount them, the state has lost its battle. If its only option is to extinguish by whatever means present themselves, the threat to its stability and its peoples' longevity, then it has that duty to fulfill. The world reads of U.S. drone strikes killing warlords associated with the Taliban on the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are targeted killings.

The presidents of Afghanistan and of Pakistan repeatedly 'warn' Washington of their concern that innocent civilians meet their deaths during these raids meant to target Taliban strongholds. In war situations people are vulnerable, it has always been so. When Israel mounted its attack against Hamas in Gaza, while Hamas militants hid behind Palestinian civilians, it was inevitable that innocent civilians might be killed.

Some group - and it might very well be Mossad - which has a long enough history of targeted assassinations - decided to rid the world of a murderer, a man whose primary interest lay in securing armaments for terror groups to permit them to continue their murderous assaults on Israel. Who, other than the man's beneficiaries, those who receive the arms, would mourn his death? Which, in a cynic's view, or that of a practical mind might be seen as justifiable homicide; self defence.

But the hue and cry that has been launched in European countries relating to the relatively minor issue of national passports being misused has put an entirely other stamp on the affair. They hold their noses from the stink of clandestine violence through what will be interpreted as state-sanctioned assassinations that implicates them by association. And the nation where the assassination took place is beside itself with fury.

Not, however, that it admitted to a high-class hotel in its jurisdiction, a murderer and a terrorist, but that that murderer-terrorist was dispatched there. When Dubai's General Tamim claimed that should Mossad, as they 99.9% anticipate, was involved, they would like Israel's prime minister held personally responsible. To which Britain's The Daily Telegraph warns that relations between Dubai and Israel would see a setback. Really?

Handily overlooking the unfortunate fact that Great Britain has allowed from time to time, warrants to be set out for the immediate arrest of Israeli generals should they set foot in England, on the basis that a Palestinian entity has accused them of war crimes. Much as has been done with Tsipi Livni, who latterly suffered a like accusation and accompanying warrant, embarrassing the British government which hardly knows which way to turn.

Assassination truly is a dreadful solution, but sometimes it presents as the only solution to an intolerable situation. Would newspapers have a field day in accusations and counter-accusations over the assassination of Hitler? Stalin? Mao? Pol Pot? Are there times when extinguishing a threat to world peace and humanity's existence would have the unofficial blessing of the world? But not other times, depending on who is being targeted?

There are as yet little-understood nuances, complexities in this Dubai-assassination, apart from the fact of the clumsiness of its execution, the absurd numbers of people involved and the semi-opaque trail left behind. Dubai's police chief claims an internal Hamas source was responsible for leaking information leading to the dispatch of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh; a source moreover that appeared to be the sole individual who knew of Mabhouh's Emirate visit.

And what of Hamas now officially taking steps to exonerate the two PA former officers of the security services for Fatah, employed by a company operated by a senior Fatah member, Mohammed Dahlan, formerly of the Gaza Strip before the Hamas rout of Fatah there? And that Mabhouh had booked his trip through the Internet, a clear breach of his own security, compounded by telephoning his family to advise which hotel he would be staying at?

Has there been any credible explanation why Mabhouh's bodyguards were unable to book a flight at the same time as the man they were to protect? As insane as it might seem, might there be some connections that seem to make no logical sense at all? Except that this is the Middle East and anything can and does happen there to confound reason.

Labels: Israel, Middle East, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, February 21, 2010