Hamas says it has scored a significant counterintelligence coup by capturing an Israeli spy off the coast of Gaza.
Strangely, the spy does little except swim around his cage and eat fish. And he won’t even give his name, rank and serial number.
Hamas claims they caught the spy red handed — er, red flippered? The spy, it seems, is a dolphin.
The dolphin was said to have been equipped with “spying equipment” including cameras.
It was captured off the Gaza coast by the naval unit of the Hamas military brigades, the radio report said.
The capture was made several weeks ago.
The Israeli Navy maintains a fleet of Dolphin class submarines. But the Army Radio report made clear that Hamas was talking about a mammal, not a boat.
Spying allegations against Israel involving various creatures are not uncommon in the region.
Twice in recent years, Turkish media have highlighted allegations that birds tagged with Israeli university tracking devices were on espionage missions.
In 2012, an eagle with an Israeli tag in Sudan was captured and touted as a Mossad spy.
Two years earlier, an Egyptian official said Israel-controlled sharks could be involved in a number of attacks on tourists in the Red Sea.
Before we get too carried away in laughing at the terrorists for their stupidity, it should be pointed out that the U.S. Navy has experimented with dolphins for several decades and trained them to perform a variety of tasks. They are apparently adept at sniffing out underwater mines, as well as rescuing downed flyers. Rumors of more sinister uses for them are apparently just that — rumors.
While dolphins are extremely intelligent, they don’t accept military discipline very well and would be poor candidates for any kind of a spy mission. Their loyalty lies with whoever gives them food, which would make them unsuited to undercover work.
But what would dolphins be able to discover about Hamas that an Israeli sub wouldn’t be able to find? The answer, of course, is nothing. Which raises an interesting question about animal Israeli spies in the Middle East.
Do they really believe this crap or are they just throwing stuff out there to rile their people up about Israel? The trouble is, you can’t dismiss the notion that they actually believe Israel can control animals to do their bidding. These aren’t “backwards” countries; they are nations going in reverse. They are de-evolving right before our eyes, retreating far into the past when the natural world was poorly understood and animals possessed magical properties.
Today, it’s dolphins. What will it be next week?
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