No smoking gun

On Tuesday we attended a concert performed by the Israel Kibbutz Orchestra at the Kimeron concert hall in Beit Shean. While we waited for the conductor Yaron Gotfried to enter from the wings I recalled that a few hundred metres from the Kimeron another theatre has been given a new lease of life.

After centuries of neglect ancient Beit Shean also known as Scythopolis has been restored to some of its former glory. Now it is part of the Beit Shean national park, one of Israel’s better known archaeological sites.

Weather permitting the Roman open air theatre is used for a variety of cultural performances.

Rabbis of the Roman-Byzantine era proscribed visiting “theatres, circuses (amphitheatres) and stadiums.” The need to declare Roman cultural, sports and leisure facilities “out-of-bounds" indicates that Jews in Beit Shean as elsewhere in the Roman Empire indulged in these forbidden activities. Admittedly the ancient theatre was used mainly for vaudeville - like light entertainment and less for presenting the classical dramas of Rome and Greece.

For almost a month now we have been watching a heightening drama, which is beginning to look like a cheap vaudeville show. At first it was reminiscent of the once popular whodunits. The “Death in Dubai” I wrote about three weeks ago could easily have been a plot for an Agatha Christie classic.

Dubai’s chief of police is increasingly convinced that a Mossad hit team “took out” Mahmoud al Mabhouh. In fact he has promised to provide indisputable evidence, a veritable “smoking gun” to support his claim. In the meantime all he has done is add more suspects to the ever-growing list of assassins and accomplices.

None of the faces in the passport photographs supplied by the Dubai police department fits my description of a licensed-to-kill agent. They all look like regular holiday makers and business people who happen to have been caught on the local candid camera programme. I couldn't find a single 007 type in the 26 strong crowd of suspected evildoers.

If the Mossad or any other "agency" wanted to kill Mahmoud al Mabhouh why would it send so many people to do the job?

I wanted to forget the event and write about Purim and my grandchildren’s costumes. Instead we are still discussing disguises and forged passports.

The plot seems to be thickening and is already more intricate than the pattern of the tablecloth my wife is embroidering.

“People are blabbering too much,” complained Knesset member and former security service head Gidon Ezra. “This story might sell papers, but I think we need to give it time to pass and allow people to forget about it.” Echoing the old adage “A closed mouth gathers no feet.”

Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi of Kadima said that under no circumstances would his committee discuss the affair.
Kadima MK Nachman Shai said the reason Netanyahu was not facing criticism was that there was a consensus in Israeli society that assassinations of terrorist leaders were necessary and that the Mossad was a sacred cow.
Writer Judith Miller quoted an unnamed Israeli source for her recent article on the Dubai assassination which appeared in Tablet Magazine. Using unnamed sources is often cause for concern, reason to doubt their reliability. However Miller herself is thorough and reliable. What’s more, reliable Israeli sources are unlikely to expose themselves, especially now.

Judith Miller heard from her source confirmation of reports of an early failed attempt to assassinate Mabhouh.

Some time last summer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was hospitalised in Dubai for unspecified “treatment.” In fact, he was recovering from an attempt by the Mossad to poison his food during an earlier visit to Lebanon..

Though he apparently did not realise it, Mabhouh was being closely watched. Members of what is now estimated to have been an 18-person Mossad assassination squad were tracking his every move, from his home in Damascus to his hospital room in Dubai. Members of the team infiltrated the hospital and were prepared to assassinate him but the attempt was called off due to what was described as a “glitch.”

A few months later, Mabhouh was in Dubai again, en route to yet another prospective purchase of weapons for Hamas. Once again, he was not alone. Throughout his brief stay in Dubai and when he boarded his plane for China, a member of a Mossad assassination squad was following him, reporting on where he went in China, whom he met and contacted, and where he stayed, dined, and slept.

Ms. Miller referring to her source says that the near-miss in the Dubai hospital and the trip to China were only two incidents in an intense, protracted surveillance effort that preceded the Mossad’s meticulously planned assassination on January 19^th.

This conclusion contradicts all the negative analysts who claim the Dubai assassination was less than perfect.

A lead article in The Economist last week entitled “A time to kill,” was a little premature in drawing conclusions. “Whether death is by computer or by more old-fashioned methods, the antecedents and details of assassination are easier to hide in rough, remote locations than in rich, westernised ones. And even in wild places, awkward facts can come out—as they obviously did in Dubai.”

If indeed the Mossad is responsible for the assassination it’s reasonable to assume that it was very well informed about Dubai.

Advance knowledge of the security cameras, the local police and the possible outcome were taken into account.

Hugh Tomlinson reporting for the Sunday Times in Dubai had plenty of details to add, mostly conclusions drawn from an analysis of the CCTV footage and the local chief of police’s statements. Plenty of speculative conclusions and few hard facts.

The Dubai chief of police Lt. Gen. Khalfan Tamim said several of the assassination team members had used their passports in Dubai at least twice before. I wonder why he failed to identify them then.

“Modern technology makes killing easier—but harder to get away with.

Only a decade ago the assassins who killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh would have disappeared into oblivion. Now that is much harder, and not merely for the obvious reason that lenses are ubiquitous. Modern cameras capture more than blurred images: they record the precise bone structure of people’s faces. Digitised and interpreted by an algorithm, this information is fed to police computers all over the world.” Claims the author of a lead article (“Hitmen old and new”) in The Economist. He/she goes on to describe how the net is closing around old-fashioned secret-service methods. Biometric passports are already the norm in most European countries. Their chips hold easily checkable data such as retina scans, which are both unique and impossible to falsify. The thought of an easily disproved false identity fills spymasters with horror.

Assuming the Mossad was responsible for Mabhouh’s death, so far an unproven assumption, what’s the damage?

“Nothing to lose sleep over,” says Jonathan Spyer of The Jerusalem Post. “The warnings of major diplomatic fallout are probably overblown . While the British government (and the governments of France and Ireland ( + Australia), whose passports were also reportedly used in the operation) will be understandably angry, past experience shows that disputes in this area tend to be treated as belonging to the special, sealed-off category of ‘national security.’ Where states have good reasons to maintain healthy ties with one another, such incidents are rarely allowed to muddy the waters for long.”

“Mossad ties are vital for the security of Britain.” Claims Michael Evans: in the

Sunday Times

“Diplomatic outrage is one thing, but severing ties with Mossad to punish Israel’s secret service for using British passports for an assassination would be to Britain’s detriment.

The intelligence world is dirty and grey, and Britain, despite its attempts to be perceived as a moral force, has to play with the dirtiest to ensure that it can share information that is so crucial to maintaining a handle on enemies and potential enemies.” Should we take that as a compliment?

Let’s return to the concert at the Kimeron hall. Yaron Gotfried was the conductor and pianist in the performance of Mozart’s piano concerto No. 23. The rest of the programme comprised Mendelssohn’s concertante piece for two clarinets and the lesser known composition – Rameau’s Dance Suite, "The Courtly Indies", performed with original choreography by Renana Raz.

Chag Purim Sameach

Beni 25^th of February, 2010.