Guilty Before Trial: The Mabhouh Assassination and the Incrimination of Israel

For weeks newspapers across Europe and the Middle East have been obsessed with the January 19 assassination of Hamas terror chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Although he was a man whose hands were dripping with the blood of innocent victims including infants, the press corps was far more critical of what was described as an Israeli assassination team of 26 that used foreign passports to conceal their identities and commit the murder.

Dubai police officials accused Mossad of the act, even though there was little direct evidence for this assertion. British newspapers blamed Israel unreservedly for Mabhouh’s death, even though there was some evidence Egyptian and Jordanian secret police were on his trail for some time.

The Telegraph claimed that British immigrants to Israel had their passports removed and copied at passport control in Tel Aviv’s airport, a practice that never occurred.

The Times argued the paper had evidence Prime Minister Netanyahu personally ordered the hit, but the evidence wasn’t produced.

Even the New York Times joined the chorus by insisting Dubai assassinations by Israel operatives occur routinely.

And French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, in a state of high dudgeon, said, “[W]e are against this form of assassination; whoever orders them should be punished. Like the British and the Germans we have asked Israeli authorities to explain themselves.” Of course he neglected to point out the many times French Foreign Legion personnel have engaged in assassination.

It is instructive that the Dubai authorities have not provided forensic evidence that points the finger of guilt at Israel, despite the widespread belief it was a Mossad operation. A few commentators, notably Alan Dershowitz, maintain that if Israel killed Mabhouh, it had every right to do so since he was a combatant in the war against the Jewish state.

What this entire incident suggests is that the reportage was not merely about the Mabhouh assassination; it was also about the incrimination of Israel.

Let me point out the truth of this claim.

In April 2009 the New York Times reported that Sulim Yamadayev, a former general in Chechnya, was killed in Dubai on March 30, 2009, in what appeared to be an assassination. The killer fired three bullets from a gold-plated gun at the victim’s chest as Yamadayev exited his private car. According to accounts this was the “fifth person murdered in recent months,” all of whom were opponents of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed president of Chechnya.

Yet remarkably, there weren’t any political repercussions. There were no calls for sanctions, no press conferences, no talk about how the killer(s) entered Dubai with fake passports.

In fact, the New York Times had one story and then dropped the issue. The British press scarcely mentioned the matter. French diplomats did not issue any accusatory comments. German officials were conspicuously silent. It was if the assassination didn’t occur.

Moreover, the Dubai police officials — the same ones who were so quick to accuse Israel of the recent assassination — argued there was insufficient evidence to even investigate the crime. In fact, as far as anyone can tell, there wasn’t any police activity after the incident occurred, even though the same cameras that incriminated Israeli agents were available last year.

It is interesting to note that the hideously biased Goldstone report suggests Israel should protect itself from unlawful attacks by proportionate means such as “targeted killing of terrorists.” Presumably there isn’t a better example of targeted killing than the assassination of Mabhouh. Yet Goldstone hasn’t issued a statement indicating the appropriateness of the act, assuming Israel was involved. Those who have been whining about “passport fraud” ignore the fact that Mabhouh was illegally smuggling missiles from Iran to Hamas and had an open invitation to use Dubai as his sanctuary.

So why are there so many scandalized by the Dubai assassination? Could it be that there is a double standard, one that applies to Israel and another that applies to the rest of the world? Why should so many resist the obvious need for a sovereign state to protect itself against terrorism?

Israel is the world’s scapegoat and the incrimination launched against this nation for the Mabhouh assassination is merely the latest episode in an ongoing battle against Jews. We should ask to what degree the reflexive condemnation of Israel is little more than an increasingly acceptable form of anti-Semitism.