A few weeks ago, an interesting story broke in the United Arab Emirates when a high-level official of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas was assassinated at a hotel in Dubai. What made the story interesting in that the assassination team was caught on tape by security cameras, and photos and passports of the operatives were made public by UAE police.
The killers were almost certainly from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. And while this was a botched operation in one sense—if you do it right, the covert assassins are never identified—it has proven an unexpected success in another. Israelis, and many others in the West, have been enthralled by this rare footage of a real-life espionage thriller in which our people kill one of the bad guys.
Jack Wakeland sent me a few links on this story, along with the following comments:
"Israelis have never before seen Mossad secret agents in operation: they love the security camera images from Dubai showing the agents moving towards Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of Hamas's top leaders, shortly before he was killed.
"One Israeli supermarket is currently running an ad campaign in which it spoofs the Dubai security camera footage.
"Despite the fact that photocopied passport photos make it difficult for seven Israeli agents to ever operate undercover again, the Dubai assassination of al-Mabhouh has given Israelis a big boost. After Dubai publicized the security camera footage, the Mossad has had a big boost in its recruiting.
"The security camera footage has entered Israel's popular culture and the nation is (righteously) enjoying a prolonged celebration of the assassination.
"The reaction in the popular culture in Israel and throughout the West is far, far, far better than the 'official' reaction to it from the Western governments—especially that of Great Britain, which turned the fact that the Mossad operatives were traveling on forged British passports into a major diplomatic incident."
I particularly like the article below, which expresses grudging admiration for the fact that the Israelis don't feel the need to deny, explain, or justify the assassination of a terrorist.
"We're All Thrilled by Mossad the Movie," Melanie Reid, London Times, February 18
All nice people, quite rightly, are adopting the proper moral stance and expressing outrage and disgust at this affront to international law and justice. But the rest of us ... well, we simply can't wait until the movie comes out. Largely thanks to the blurry CCTV pictures, there is an element to the assassination in Dubai that is appallingly irresistible. What the secret agents did—and, critically, what we saw them do—was compelling and breathtaking in its cleverness….
That the agents were using fake identities, one of them being that of Paul Keeley, 42, a bewildered Kent-born odd-job man who was living in Israel, just added to the sense that this was too good to be true. Where were George Clooney and Brad Pitt? To see the images of tubby tennis players bimbling across the hotel lobby and into the lift with the Danny Devito-like figure of Mr al-Mabhouh, and then following him so that they could note down his room number, was to know that this was an incomparable heist; a case of life imitating art imitating life. That it was a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of international espionage makes it all the more seductive….
It is an unfashionable thing to say, but I have a considerable admiration for the Israeli way of doing things. They want something, they get it. They perceive someone as their deadly enemy, they kill them. They get hit, they hit back. They don't waste time explaining or justifying or agonizing; nor do they allow their detractors to enter their country and then afford them generous welfare payments. They just act. No messing. No scruples. Not even a shrug and a denial, just a rather magnificent refusal to debate anything.
This absolutism, based on their history, carries its own moral weight; one that is rather electrifying in a Western world grown flabby with niceties.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal"
The killers were almost certainly from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. And while this was a botched operation in one sense—if you do it right, the covert assassins are never identified—it has proven an unexpected success in another. Israelis, and many others in the West, have been enthralled by this rare footage of a real-life espionage thriller in which our people kill one of the bad guys.
Jack Wakeland sent me a few links on this story, along with the following comments:
"Israelis have never before seen Mossad secret agents in operation: they love the security camera images from Dubai showing the agents moving towards Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of Hamas's top leaders, shortly before he was killed.
"One Israeli supermarket is currently running an ad campaign in which it spoofs the Dubai security camera footage.
"Despite the fact that photocopied passport photos make it difficult for seven Israeli agents to ever operate undercover again, the Dubai assassination of al-Mabhouh has given Israelis a big boost. After Dubai publicized the security camera footage, the Mossad has had a big boost in its recruiting.
"The security camera footage has entered Israel's popular culture and the nation is (righteously) enjoying a prolonged celebration of the assassination.
"The reaction in the popular culture in Israel and throughout the West is far, far, far better than the 'official' reaction to it from the Western governments—especially that of Great Britain, which turned the fact that the Mossad operatives were traveling on forged British passports into a major diplomatic incident."
I particularly like the article below, which expresses grudging admiration for the fact that the Israelis don't feel the need to deny, explain, or justify the assassination of a terrorist.
"We're All Thrilled by Mossad the Movie," Melanie Reid, London Times, February 18
All nice people, quite rightly, are adopting the proper moral stance and expressing outrage and disgust at this affront to international law and justice. But the rest of us ... well, we simply can't wait until the movie comes out. Largely thanks to the blurry CCTV pictures, there is an element to the assassination in Dubai that is appallingly irresistible. What the secret agents did—and, critically, what we saw them do—was compelling and breathtaking in its cleverness….
That the agents were using fake identities, one of them being that of Paul Keeley, 42, a bewildered Kent-born odd-job man who was living in Israel, just added to the sense that this was too good to be true. Where were George Clooney and Brad Pitt? To see the images of tubby tennis players bimbling across the hotel lobby and into the lift with the Danny Devito-like figure of Mr al-Mabhouh, and then following him so that they could note down his room number, was to know that this was an incomparable heist; a case of life imitating art imitating life. That it was a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of international espionage makes it all the more seductive….
It is an unfashionable thing to say, but I have a considerable admiration for the Israeli way of doing things. They want something, they get it. They perceive someone as their deadly enemy, they kill them. They get hit, they hit back. They don't waste time explaining or justifying or agonizing; nor do they allow their detractors to enter their country and then afford them generous welfare payments. They just act. No messing. No scruples. Not even a shrug and a denial, just a rather magnificent refusal to debate anything.
This absolutism, based on their history, carries its own moral weight; one that is rather electrifying in a Western world grown flabby with niceties.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal"
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