Last year in Dubai, Pe’er defeated Danish superstar Caroline Wozniacki—then the world’s top-ranked player, currently the world’s second-ranked, and once again competing in Dubai—prompting a, er, cheeky tweet (later deleted) from Israel’s British Embassy: “You heard it here first: Israeli tennis player carries out hit on #Dubai target.” Here’s hoping for similar success—on the court—this year.

Israeli Tennis Star Back in Dubai [Kaplan’s Korner]
Related: Israeli Embassy Deletes Joke About Dubai ‘Hit’ From Twitter [The Lede]
Earlier: Israeli Tennis Star Ready for Flushing Meadows

• But by destabilizing Lebanon, its base, Hezbollah’s gambit was not without its risks. [NYT]

• How ‘bout China and Russia! China flat-out refused Iran’s offer for a tour of its nuclear facilities, seen as fuzzy at best since the United States was not invited; and Russia such a tour would not be a replacement for negotiations and U.N. inspects. [AP/NYT]

• The man said to be in charge of laundering money to Hamas from sources such as Iran—previously the assassinated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s job—was arrested in (where else?) Dubai. [Ynet]

• Yossi Alpher notes that the recent moves toward Palestinian statehood do not touch issues like the right of return and so actually could, judo-like, be used by Israel to move toward a final deal on rather favorable terms. [JPost]

• Israel and Greece, which have drawn closer as Israel and Turkey have bickered, formed a regional force for dealing with natural disasters. [JTA]

Bergman is misleading in implying that he has dug up substantial new information about the plot (“In the course of reporting this story, GQ has learned … ” ). Actually, we already knew most of the details of the plot—since most of these details were uncovered via Dubai’s own extensive security-camera system. And other elements were reported out over the past 12 months, among others by Tablet Magazine’s own Judith Miller.

The bigger deal is Bergman’s argument that this was a “bungled operation.” “Why did the Mossad permit things to go so wrong in Dubai?” he asks. He calls it “the Dubai fiasco.” You would think al-Mabhouh were sitting on a nice beach somewhere—or, worse, that he were still in Damascus, helping facilitate the shipment of Iranian arms to Hamas in Gaza. In fact—and as I wrote at the time—like Generalissimo Francisco Franco before him, al-Mabhouh is still dead. You can argue that Israel’s extensive assassination policy is wrong, or immoral, or counterproductive, but Bergman doesn’t—he seems to think, rather, that the Dubai mission was a failure on its own terms, when in fact, while it was far from perfectly executed, I don’t see how you can argue that it wasn’t accomplished.

More specifically, Bergman wants to paint the operation as a failure for Meir Dagan, Mossad’s just-departed former chief, and perhaps the thing that drove him out after a largely successful term. Bergman’s case is that the unprecedented revelations about Mossad’s operation and even personnel, which came about due to subsequently exposed phony passports, both embarrassed Israel and enraged allies like Britain and Germany whose official documents were faked for the mission. “Because Dagan refashioned the Mossad in his own image, and because he drove out anyone who was willing to question his decisions,” Bergman argues, “there was no one in the agency to tell him that the Dubai operation was badly conceived and badly planned.” (Again, you would think al-Mabhouh survived.)

But even as Bergman is describing “one of the most serious mistakes made by the planners of the operation—certainly the one that caused the greatest embarrassment to the Mossad and to Israel—[which] involved the use of forged foreign identities,” he is also noting Mossad’s “unique problem,” which is that its spies may not use Israeli passports where German or British or American spies can use German or British or American passports, because Israel does not have diplomatic relations with several key countries (such as Dubai’s United Arab Emirates). I am not sure how Bergman can mention this yet not suggest that it is quite plausible that Mossad, knowing this problem, simply did a cost-benefit analysis and calculated that the cost of the blown covers were worth the benefit of killing al-Mabhouh.

Similarly, Bergman points to “the now seemingly insurmountable problem posed by twenty-first-century counterespionage systems.” But surely Israel was aware of this “problem.” Maybe the fact that they went ahead with the operation is proof simply of how much al-Mabhouh was worth to them dead? And, again: “Insurmountable”? Al-Mabhouh is no more! He has ceased to be! This is an ex-person! (I don’t mean to be glib with what is after all a human life, but, first, al-Mabhouh was reportedly a nasty terrorist, and, second, I really do wonder if Bergman always kept in mind that the mission was successful in its ultimate objective.)

There are such things as bungled missions—Bergman reports that in the ’70s the same super-elite Mossad squad, called Caesarea, targeted the head of Black September, the Palestinian terrorists that killed the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich, but instead killed a totally innocent waiter in Norway. That is a “fiasco,” and it was specifically not repeated this time, in part because members of the assassination squad made as many as five prior trips to Dubai to confirm that the man they believed to be al-Mabhouh in fact was al-Mabhouh. So, the “Dubai fiasco”? Bergman and his editors, publishing for a mainstream American audience that likely has only faint knowledge of the whole affair before reading this article, should have chosen a more understated word to describe what messily, imperfectly, but in the end successfully went down in Dubai.

The Dubai Job [GQ]
Related: Assassination Tango [Tablet Magazine]
Murder in Dubai [Tablet Magazine]

• WikiLeaks keeps on giving: Today we learn that the United States declined a United Arab Emirates request to check three credit card numbers allegedly used by Mossad operatives in connection with the January assassination of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. [Haaretz]

• Gal Beckerman, whom I talked to when Kissinger’s “gas chambers” remark first became public, does the damn thing on Kissinger’s apologia. Must-read. [WP]

• Jewish heartthrob Natalie Portman is engaged to and pregnant with Benjamin Millepied, the perfectly named French (not Jewish) choreographer on her latest movie, Black Swan. [ABC]

• American football: They play it in Israel! [NYT]

• Iran hanged a man convicted of being a Mossad spy. [AP/LAT]

2010 was a record tourism year for Israel. [Arutz Sheva]

Dmitriy Salita on the grand Israel tour. [Fightnews.com]

Move over, Dolph Schayes: The greatest Jewish basketball player of all time is clearly Jesus Christ. [The Basketball Jones]

Yes, of course there is video of Israeli football.

It means that al-Qaida’s networks in the Arabian Peninsula are very active. It means that al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Aulaki, the onetime “moderate” Imam in Virginia who inspired Major Nidal Malik Hasan to shoot 12 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, is trying to kill as many of his fellow Americans as he can before the Obama Administration catches him in the crosshairs of a drone attack. It means that the Yemeni government is weak. Were it strong, it would have either found those devices before they left Yemen or, alternatively, it would have ensured those bombs reached their destinations by providing the sort of logistical support that only Arab and Iranian security services can offer terrorist groups.

Most important, it means it’s OK to kill Jews.

These two explosive devices, directed at the president’s hometown on the eve of midterm elections, constitute an information operation. While the message is not particularly sophisticated, what makes it interesting is that the perpetrators seem to have come to a perfect understanding of their target audience. After all, what do two synagogues in Chicago have to do with anything in Yemen?

President Barack Obama, Homeland Security chief John Brennan, and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs all carefully declined to take the opportunity of the well-publicized threat to make any comment whatsoever about the fact that American Jews were being specifically targeted by terrorists, to reassure the Jewish community that it was being protected, or to denounce the planned attacks on Jewish places of worship.

And yet, in the next few days, someone in the media—I don’t know exactly who, but someone—will argue that these synagogues were chosen because the president’s former chief-of-staff, a Jew, wants to be the next mayor of Chicago. Hence, this is, in reality, a message to the White House to stop targeting Yemeni militants.

Absurd? Sure it is. But it is more plausible than the notion that American Jews and Jewish houses of worship in Illinois were targeted because of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, or the Golan Heights, or Shaaba Farms, or because of the existence of the State of Israel itself. Someone is surely going to make that argument, because almost all Arab terror against Jews is now attributed to—and excused by—the Arab conflict with Israel, which has become a free pass to commit acts of terror against Jews.

Terror, violence, and bloodshed against Jews now come pre-packaged with a sanctimonious justification. It’s not seen as crazy, sick, irrational violence. It’s political violence. Terrorist violence is irrational and incomprehensible—unless the victims are Jewish. Why do terrorists bomb America, bomb London, bomb Madrid, bomb Casablanca, burn Mumbai? Because they’re crazy, that’s why. With the Jews, well, there’s the occupation. There’s Israel. There’s America’s support for Israel. Terrorism may be abhorrent, but when it comes to the Jews the terrorists themselves have a lot to be angry about. Accordingly, we’re supposed to regard these acts with both horror and reason at the same time—“sure, it’s not pretty, but we get it.” In other words, terror against Jews may produce violence and bloodshed but not moral revulsion.

The target of this attack was Jews, but the target of the information operation is all Americans—including the Americans who rationalize terror attacks against Jews. We created the context for operations like this one and we will see many more of them, bombs and much worse, against Jews and non-Jews alike, for our enemies have taken stock of our character. We are looking for excuses not to fight them. And we accept their phony justifications for the killing of Jews.

• In a turnabout, Prime Minister Netanyahu now advocates a version of the loyalty oath bill that would require all prospective immigrants, including Jews, to pledge allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic” state. [JPost]

• Netanyahu alleged that Hamas in Gaza has anti-aircraft weapons, which if true would change the current dynamic wherein the Israeli Air Force can lauch strikes with abandon if it chooses. [AP/NYT]

• The Israeli demand for recognition of its Jewishness stems from its fear of the growth of its Arab minority. [LAT]

• A suspect in the Dubai assassination of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was arrested in Canada. We don’t know more, making this seem vaguely like your girlfriend who lives in Canada. [JTA]

• A further appreciation of the late human rights law professor Louis Henkin. [NYT]

• President Ahmadinejad arrives in Lebanon tomorrow even as officials there have tried to downplay the visit. [LAT]

• Excellent reporting on how New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino ended up talking to Brooklyn Hasidim in the first place. [NYT]

• Dubai police disclosed that two months ago someone who played “a key role in the killing” of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was arrested, though they won’t say for what, by whom, or what nationality he is. [Haaretz]

• Sanctions have taken a genuine toll even on Iran’s day-to-day economy. [WSJ]

• A committee-approved bill to require a national referendum for land cessions in the West Bank and the Golan still faces important opposition: From both Labor Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Likud Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin. [JPost]

Part of the problem? “Despite an initial burst of tough talk from various governments, some international investigators are concerned that politics may be hampering cooperation from some governments that support Israel. … Two senior American officials acknowledge the case is unusually sensitive because of Washington’s close ties with Israel.”

The hottest lead concerned the bearer of the real British passport for 62-year-old Christopher Lockwood. But Lockwood never appeared at his London address; and while his prior identity was thought to be that of one Yehuda Lustig, born in Scotland to Jews from Mandatory Palestine, it turns out Lustig was killed in combat during the Yom Kippur War. No dice.

The only arrest made has been that of Uri Brodsky (probably not his real name), who was apprehended in Poland and extradited to Germany for allegedly procuring a fraudulent German passport for one of the assassins. However—and I never cease to find this amusing—under the terms of his extradition, Germany could not charge Brodsky with espionage, because spying on Germany is not against the law in Poland. Upon extradition, he made bail and returned to Israel, and while his departure reactivated Germany’s warrant for espionage, well, good luck getting Israel to extradite him back for that.

Oh, and the Mossad? It continues neither to confirm nor deny involvement. Israel is not cooperating in any investigations.

In Global Hunt for Hit Men, Tantalizing Trail Grows Cold [WSJ]
Related: Murder in Dubai [Tablet Magazine]
Earlier: Poles Bar Germans from Jailing Brodsky

• Israeli officials, however, say they do expect Arab League backing for President Abbas’s decision. [JPost]

• Settlers seemed pleased, anyway. [JPost]

• Russia is refunding Iran’s down-payment for a sophisticated anti-aircraft system—further proof, says the U.S., that Russia is welcomely toughening up in its dealings with the Islamic Republic. [Laura Rozen]

• Guess who hasn’t been discovered? Really any of the over 30 suspected killers of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh [WSJ]

• A top Israeli energy tycoon discusses his rate battle with the Israeli government. [LAT]

Not to make light of the whole affair, or Brodsky’s situation, but there is an amusing aspect to his legal troubles. Under the terms of the Polish extradition ruling, the German government—no doubt much to its chagrin—is not permitted to charge Brodsky with anything—like, say, espionage—more serious than forgery. Moreover, the maximum penalty in Germany for forgery is a fine; Brodsky is unlikely to do jail-time even before and during any trial. Moreover, the reason the Polish courts have ruled that Brodsky cannot be tried for anti-German espionage is because spying on Germany isn’t a crime in Poland—which (this is the part I find amusing) actually makes perfect sense if you know your European history.

German Report: ‘Uri Brodsky’ To Avoid Jail [Ynet]
Suspected Mossad Agent Loses Extradition Fight Over Dubai Hit [Haaretz]
Will The Real Uri Brodsky Please Stand Up? [Tikkun Olam]
Earlier: Brodsky To Be Extradited on Lesser Charge
Related: Murder in Dubai [Tablet Magazine]

• Seeing an opportunity in effective sanctions and technical delays, President Obama is again trying to engage Iran. [WP]

• A Polish court upheld Uri Brodsky’s extradition to Germany. Brodsky, an alleged Mossad agent, is accused of fraudulently procuring a German passport for one of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s assassins. [Haaretz]

• Diplomacy-wise, Israel and Turkey have seen far better days. Economically, they remain strong and important partners for each other. [NYT]

• A sad, panoramic sketch of the shrinking of the Dead Sea. [NYT]

• Reginald Levy, the pilot of the plane hijacked by Black September in 1972, died at 88. He received a hero’s welcome after Israeli commandos (led by Ehud Barak) stormed the plane and rescued the passengers,. [NYT]

While Israel had hoped the Polish judge would deny Germany’s request for extradition altogether, the ruling was actually not nearly as bad, from Israel’s and Brodsky’s perspectives, as it could have been: It extradites not for the much more serious charge of espionage, but rather for the lesser crime of forgery. Why? Because—unsurprisingly, when you come to think of it—spying on Germany is not a crime in Poland.

Brodsky (which may or may not be his real name) is not suspected to have been directly involved in the assassination. Rather, he stands accused of procuring a fraudulent passport for one of the assassins in the name of Michael Bodenheimer—a real-life Israeli rabbi who, being the American-born son of a pre-World War II German citizen, is entitled to a German passport under German law. Al-Mabhouh buffs will recall that the single German passport used by the assassins was, in fact, a genuine one.

Poland To Extradite Alleged Mossad Agent [JPost]
Alleged Mossad Agent May Appeal Extradition Over Dubai Hit [Haaretz]
Related: Murder in Dubai [Tablet Magazine]

So now this is back in the news, and with it comes renewed discussion of the assassination’s wisdom (or lack thereof). Israel “now,” writes columnist Yaakov Katz, “has a new crisis to deal with—this time with one of its last two remaining friends in Europe: Poland and Germany.”

And while Melman points to Poland’s efforts to keep the arrest quiet as evidence of its friendship with Israel, he adds,

The fact that this is the first arrest of an Israeli suspected of being a Mossad agent involved in the Dubai assassination indicates that the matter refuses to fade away.

The Dubai hit may have been a success operationally, but it has severely damaged Israel diplomatically. …

The political damage to Israel comes as a series of actions—or lack of actions—indicate that the world is sick of Israel’s deeds and sees Israel as a neighborhood bully that disregards and violates international norms. Israel’s good friends, like Australia, Germany and France are finding it difficult to defend Israel and to justify their support of Israel to their publics.

Of course, as a defender of the assassination might say, Mabhouh could not be reached for comment.

Is Israel Losing Another Ally Because of Dubai Hit? [Haaretz]
Analysis: Was Mabhouh Worth It? [JPost]

Poland To Rule on Suspected Israeli Spy Within a Month [Ynet]
Related: Murder in Dubai [Tablet Magazine]

• We learned that Australia’s expulsion yesterday of a Mossad representative related to the Dubai/Hamas assassination followed the country’s intelligence chief’s personal trip to Israel. Israeli diplomats called this “a very serious crisis.” [Haaretz]

• Others joined Shimon Peres in denying the report that Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid-era South Africa. [NYT]

• U.S. envoy George Mitchell revealed that he intends to set a “deadline” for a peace agreement to emerge from the proximity talks. [Foreign Policy]

• Israeli police suggested that the attorney general indict Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for allegedly attempting to subvert a corruption investigation. His indictment for alleged corruption has previously been recommended, though not followed through on. [WSJ]

• The guest list to Thursday night’s White House Jewish Heritage reception is beginning to trickle out. Hopefully invitee Sandy Koufax will show. (We will have a report afterward.) [AP]

• An Israeli chef made the world’s largest falafel ball—30 pounds!—right here in New York City, at what sounds like a typical Greek diner. [JTA]

• The unlikely tale of Henry Roth’s soon-to-be-posthumously-published seventh novel. [NYT]

• Nextbook Press editor Jonathan Rosen is participating in an exciting-sounding forthcoming exhibit at the Whitney Museum. Birds, guys! Birds! [Whitney Museum]

• Simon Monjack, the husband of the late actress Brittany Murphy, was found dead. They’re saying natural causes. [AP/NYT]

• Beef roll-up: The Jewish deli meat presentation you may not have tried, yet. [NYMag]

Marjorie Ingall’s column today has 52 comments! Keep ‘em comin’!

• A new book (reviewed in Tablet Magazine) reports that, in 1975, the Israeli defense minister—then Shimon Peres—offered to sell nuclear warheads to apartheid-era South Africa. A Peres spokesperson vigorously denied the report. [Guardian]

• Sometimes a drill is only a drill. This includes, the Israeli government says, the current five-day civil defense drill, which is not, it adds, designed to drum up war with Lebanon. [NYT]

• The Dubai police now have its 33rd subject in the murder of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh: a Scottish-born British national who apparently used his own passport. [WSJ]

• Yesterday’s Salute to Israel Parade drew “tens of thousands” to Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. [JTA]

• Should Turkey continue to try to forestall Iran sanctions, it could seriously rupture its relations with its NATO allies. [WP]

• Later this month, Netanyahu will become the first Israeli prime minister to visit Canada since Yitzhak Rabin. [Arutz Sheva]

• Manhattan’s Union Square will be the site of a massive Sukkah competition this September. [Sukkah City]

• More on the new Dubai Murder Mystery suspects: One is an Israeli citizen who is wanted in New Zealand for passport fraud. [Haaretz]

• A New York-style deli settles down in the relatively exotic realm of … Tel Aviv. [Forward]

• Tonight, the unofficial poet laureate of New Jersey Bruce Springsteen and the onetime official poet laureate of the United States (and Nextbook Press author) Robert Pinsky will discuss Pinsky’s poem “Jersey Rain”. You get three guesses as to which state this event is taking place in. [INJersey]

‘And my machine, she’s a dud/She’s stuck in the mud/Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.’

• Sorry I missed this yesterday, but an editorial notes that the administration’s pressure on Israel accomplished little to nothing, and calls on it to focus on getting the two sides talking to each other. [WP]

• British elections are today. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg tells a reporter that he cares deeply for British and Israeli Jews; is against cultural sanctions and Britain’s participation in Durban 2; but also questions the Gaza blockade. [Haaretz]

• There are five more suspects in the Dubai murder of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, so 32 total. Plus, there might be a New Zealand connection! [WSJ]

• Comments from the new head of the International Atomic Energy Association seem to presage a firmer stance on Iran. [WP]

• The Czech Republic’s foreign minister told President Peres that Israel should follow Czechoslovakia’s two-state lead. Oh, okay! [JPost]

However, notes a valuable Wall Street Journal report, throughout this whole time, relations between the two countries’ defense and intelligence establishments have been consistent—consistently improving. The United States is selling Israel ever more sophisticated military technology. Intelligence-sharing has increased, particularly where halting Iranian arms shipments is concerned. And Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are basically BFFs at this point.

Three main factors explain the close cooperation:

• Even if you buy into the concept of “linkage” (and Tablet Magazine’s Lee Smith believes you shouldn’t), the two countries’ interests, particularly vis-à-vis Iran and its proxies in Damascus and Hezbollah, remain largely aligned.

• A stable region depends on the perception that the United States has Israel’s back; if Israel appears overly weak, that is more likely to invite attacks from its enemies.

• Israel is less likely to take military action against Iran—which many U.S. military and diplomatic leaders don’t want to see happen—if it feels its security is guaranteed by America.

The two-track nature of the alliance is reminiscent of what happened a couple months ago, while Israel was sustaining a bad bout of P.R. due to the general belief that it had assassinated Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. No matter what the diplomats were saying, it seemed pretty clear that military and (especially) intelligence ties wouldn’t suffer. And, apparently, they didn’t.

U.S.-Israel Ties Remain Intact [WSJ]
Related: Linked In [Tablet Magazine]

So what does this mean? It means that, barring further sensational evidence that it was indeed the Mossad who killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, you probably just saw the extent of adverse political consequences to the assassination for Israel. And even if there are further wrist-slaps, there are not going to be fundamental break-downs in Israeli alliances over this: no matter how much the diplomats want it, other countries’ intelligence services clearly understand, first, that covert assassination of state enemies on foreign soil is something of the way business is done; and, second, that they need cooperation with Israeli intelligence at least as much as Israeli intelligence needs cooperation with them.

A top Israeli diplomat had the most telling line: “The British really did the minimum required on their part over the passports,” he told Haaretz. In other words, if positions were reversed, this figure would have wanted to do the same thing—after all, he’s a diplomat.

U.K. Officials Were Split Over Expelling Israeli in Dubai Row [Haaretz ]
Related: Israeli: Mossad Hit Didn’t Upset Intel Ties

• Bonus! Last paragraph of the same article notes that South African authorities reportedly couldn’t come up with footage of the assassins in a Johannesburg airport because said footage has been “mysteriously wiped.”

• 86-year-old Israeli President Shimon Peres said of the Negev Desert, “This is an attractive area. If I wasn’t a politician, I would even say it had sex appeal.” [Ynet]

• The Arab League head wants to cultivate closer ties with Iran. [Haaretz]

• Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) said it was appropriate that health care passed when it did: “The meaning of the seder is that no one should be left behind.” [JTA]

• Mark Bittman tells you how to make olive oil matzah. [NYT]

• An IDF soldier was killed in friendly fire. His fellow troops were engaged in halting three Palestinians trying to cross over the Gaza border. [NYT]

• The parents of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit begged the U.N. Human Rights Council to pressure Hamas to release their son. [JPost]

• President Obama is in a stronger position to negotiate with Netanyahu than he was even 48 hours ago, due to the passage of health care reform. They meet at the White House tonight. [Politico]

• Britain is expelling the Mossad’s representative there in protest of the forged British passports allegedly used in the (probably Mossad-backed) assassination of a Hamas weapons man in Dubai. [Haaretz]

• The mayor of Jerusalem helpfully noted that the 1600 announced homes in East Jerusalem is just the tip of the iceberg: there are, he said, plans to build 50,000 homes in a united city over the next two decades. [Arutz Sheva]

• Al-Mabhouh’s death was supposed to look like a heart attack—the door’s inner latch was set; the room was tidy; he was found splayed on the floor with no immediately visible marks—and was almost mistaken for one, until one doctor spied something fishy in his blood.

• The muscle relaxant the assassins used was probably supposed to do the job by itself—in high enough doses, it mimics cardiac arrest within 15 minutes. The fact that al-Mabhouh was also suffocated by a pillow suggests, says one investigator, that the assassins “were panicking for one reason or another.”

• The Dubai police employed sophisticated facial recognition software to the video of the assassins.

• The doors to almost all rooms at the hotel at which al-Mabhouh was staying are visible from the central atrium.

• Authorities believe one of the assassins knew al-Mabhouh—hence, there was no evidence of forced entry.

• Authorities are now taking a fresh look at the 2001 death of Palestinian activist Faisal Husseini in Kuwait in light of the al-Mabhouh revelations.

The article implicitly assumes that because al-Mabhouh’s death has definitively been established as murder, and almost as definitively established as Mossad-backed, then it failed. But one could also argue that the Mossad—which has not (and surely will not) either confirmed nor denied involvement—gains some benefit from having the world think it is able to do this. Anyway, if an operation that achieved its primary mission and resulted in zero apprehensions is a failure, then success must be very sweet indeed.

How Dubai Unraveled a Homicide, Frame By Frame [LAT]
Related: Murder in Dubai

The interesting detail has to do with a New York City-based company called Payoneer, whose prepaid debit cards were reportedly used by many of the 27 (at last count) suspected assassins.

New York City-based … but heavily enmeshed in the world of the Israeli military and intelligence services. Payoneer is run by Yuval Tal, who served in an Israeli “elite combat unit.” An Israeli Air Force pilot was a first-round investor; the venture capital fund that led the following investment round did so under the hand of a military intelligence captain; a further round was led by a fund founded by a former IDF Special Forces man.

To an extent, of course, this is to be expected: when a country has universal conscription, then most entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, like most of everyone else, will have done military service. But these connections clearly tend toward the more covert, mysterious end of the spectrum.

Plus, look, it was—at least in part—the Mossad. It just was. (The Mossad, as always, will neither confirm nor deny involvement.)

New York City’s Assassination Connection [NY Observer]
Related: Murder in Dubai [Tablet Magazine]

It’s a fantastic monument, not only because the fish—its expression resembling that of a teenager rudely awoken from an afternoon nap—looks thoroughly fake, but also because it suggests to the uninitiated traveler that beyond the terminal’s gates lies a world of wonders, strange creatures and all.

In a sense, this is precisely the feeling the Antiguan government is interested in promoting. More than 300,000 tourists, on average, descend on the island’s shores each year, a horde of salmon-hued Brits and beer-battered Germans that both sustains and overwhelms the local population, estimated at 72,000. There’s little the Antiguans can do: Tourism accounts for more than 60 percent of the island’s economy, leaving the locals with no choice but to vigorously market their tiny nation as a magical Caribbean getaway, a sort of real-life Fantasy Island. Along these lines, the fish is a monument to the impossible: St. Bart’s may have the reputation, and Mustique the celebrity appeal, but only in Antigua, the marlin suggests, may the very laws of nature be bent for your amusement.

Last week, my wife Lisa and I flew to Antigua for a weekend to attend the wedding of Mr. B., a hotelier, at his lovely Antiguan resort. Much time was spent pondering what to wear—the groom threatened to beat up and toss out any guest who dared wear a tie—and very little contemplating such minor issues as entry visas. If Israeli citizens needed a visa to visit Antigua, I told myself, Mr. B.’s son-in-law, himself Israeli and my close friend, would surely have let me known.

But no sooner had we landed and admired the oversized fish than an immigration official broke the doleful news: no visa, no entry. Meekly, I removed my baseball cap and shades and said that I had no idea I needed a visa, an idiotic statement that seemed to elicit more pity than disgust. “Well,” said the immigration official, “you do.”

There was no other choice. I invoked Mr. B.’s name. This had the desired effect: Lisa and I were removed from the line, taken to a secluded spot by the nurse’s office, and instructed to wait. Soon, another official, smiling warmly, moseyed over and told us that she’d do whatever she could to help us resolve our little problem as quickly as possible.

Veteran travelers, we refused to succumb to panic. Instead, we pulled out our phones and texted Mr. B.’s daughter, informing her of the snafu. Two minutes later, there she was, beaming, standing by our sides. There was no point in asking how she’d gotten through security, immigration, and all the other barriers that are supposed to stop you from walking right into an airport’s secure detention spot. A few words were exchanged, and it was agreed that I would be released on my own recognizance, passport unstamped, and sent to the Ministry of National Security to settle my affairs.

The Ministry of National Security is located in downtown St. John’s, across the street from a Subway sandwich shop, in a building that looks more suited to botched drug deals than to any official matter of state. The posters on the wall make clear the ministry’s main concern; most of them warn against abduction and modern-day slavery and feature a host of pink figures engaged in subservient activities, from forced intercourse to mopping floors. The ministry’s employees, however, were unperturbed: R&B ballads roared from the tinny speakers of a far-off computer, and most officials, dressed in blue-and-white uniforms, seemed as unburdened as only those entrusted with defending a thoroughly unthreatened Caribbean nation can be.

Accompanied by our friends and Larry, Mr. B.’s lawyer, we located the right official and pleaded our case. The official, a woman in her fifties, was baffled. You were already allowed into the country, she said as she looked at my unstamped passport, you may as well just stay.

Larry, a former LAPD police officer and a man with many connections on the island, asked for a moment alone with the official. A few minutes later, he came out and said quietly that he thought he figured out the entire mess. Antigua, he said, had a diplomatic relationship with Libya. After Israel assassinated a Hamas official in Dubai last month, the Libyans demanded that Israelis no longer be allowed to enter Antigua, or, at the very least, that they be required to pay a hefty fee for a special tourist visa. The Ministry of National Security, he added, was cool with letting me stay, but it was the prime minister’s call, and we needed to report to the prime minister’s office to sort everything out. Unfazed, we said our goodbyes to the lovely folks at National Security, who saw us off by making us promise to convey heartfelt congratulations to Mr. B. on his upcoming nuptials.

On our way to see the prime minister, however, my mind began racing. Here I was, I thought, in paradise, detained for a crime I didn’t commit. All I wanted was a quick vacation, and instead I was forced to account for my country’s follies. I had left Israel behind, emigrated to America, got my Green Card, opted to abandon the perpetual association with the sort of militaristic shenanigans that lose friends and alienate people. Clichés started swirling in my head: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. You can run, but you can’t hide. You may be through with the past, but the past isn’t through with you.

The car stopped. We were parked in front of a one-story office in the midst of a patch of grass, guarded by a single soldier in a green t-shirt and no gun. In front were two enormous stone lions, the sort popular both in China and in chintzy souvenir shops on Manhattan’s 59th Street. It looked, I whispered to Lisa, like a dentist’s office in a Long Island strip mall.

It smelled like one, too, with the unmistakable odor of acrylic monomer, ammonia, and quiet desperation. Magazines were strewn everywhere, mainly an oversized glossy called China Today. It was a thick hint: Chinese government contractors are in charge of most major construction projects in Antigua, as they are in so many developing countries across the globe. Hence the stone lions. A poster on a nearby wall read: “What will come to us will come to us, so quit your worrying!” I took the advice to heart.

A hospitable secretary greeted us, indicating that the Ministry of National Security had already filled her in on the details. We were asked to pay $40 and received a printed receipt. We were officially welcomed to Antigua and allowed to drive on to the resort.

There, in the shadow of palm trees and in the company of some of the island’s most influential men, scotch and talk both flowed. The Mossad, one tough old developer said with a smile, nearly assassinated our vacation plans. Another advised me to try and avoid killing anyone while on the beach. I grinned politely but stared at the umbrella floating in my cocktail; if everyone already saw me as a murderer, I brooded, I might as well enjoy it.

Gradually, however, my ire subsided, drowned in drink and merriment. The weekend was glorious. When I saw the prime minister himself at the wedding, I smiled politely and shook hands. Antigua, after all, let me in. There was no need for a diplomatic incident.

Tanned and thrilled, we flew back home to New York, where two feet of snow were still piled on the ground. The next morning, we talked about our time as personae non grata in paradise. At a distance, the entire story seemed fantastic. Would Antigua really care about the Mossad? Would a mere visa requirement constitute punishment of Israel and its policies? And would any nation, even one as relaxed about its official undertakings as Antigua, really change its rules overnight and fail to notify the rest of the world?

Anxious, I called the consulate general of Antigua in New York and asked to speak with the tourism representative. I told her everything, about my arrival and the prime minister’s office and how everybody on the island, officials and guests alike, suggested that I was the target of an international mishap involving the Libyans. The woman was silent for a few long moments. She knew nothing of the Mossad, she finally said, but was quite certain that Israelis had always required a visa to visit Antigua. But there was no way, she added, that anyone in Antigua would ever allow me in without stamping my passport, Israeli or otherwise.

I thanked her, hung up, and thought of the marlin.

Postscript: Further investigations show that the Consulate representative was right: Israelis have always needed a visa to visit Antigua. So, it turns out, have Libyans.

• The top U.N. official for humanitarian relief condemned the Gaza blockade, saying it imposed on residents “an existence, not a life.” [NYT]

• Most Arab states support four-month U.S.-organized indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians. [Reuters/Haaretz]

• One week after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was received warmly in Syria, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced an upcoming state visit to Tehran. [Arutz Sheva]

• Maureen Dowd reports that, “at their own galactically glacial pace,” Saudi Arabia is modernizing, even as Israel grows less secular. [NYT]

• Hank Rosenstein, who in 1946 played for the New York Knicks in what’s now considered the first NBA game, died at 89. In that 68-66 win over the Toronto Huskies, Rosenstein had seven Jewish teammates (in addition to himself). [NYT]

In our home in Queens, New York, he would sit his five children down on the living room rug and tell us stories of the Prophet Muhammad. It was the way he told the stories that made us respect and accept Islam as a way of life—rubbing his ankles with his left hand, and swaying back and forth—pausing and then repeating the most important parts of the stories to make sure we had understood. Some people have a way of earning your respect through their eyes. They search your face to make you understand what they are trying to tell you before they actually say anything, and their attention makes you want to respect them. My father was one of those people.

My father was also an indulgent man who never denied his children anything. In middle school, he let his three daughters attend a three-day school trip in the wilderness; most Muslim fathers would never let their daughters spend a night outside of the family home. If the sleeves of a shirt were too short or our pants too tight, he’d softly ask a question: “Don’t you think the sleeves of that shirt are too short?” It was his way—telling you, without actually telling you—that made you ask for his forgiveness. My father made me appreciate Islam, and I began praying five times a day when I was 8 years old, and everything I did from that point on was for Islam and my father. In high school I was teased for not wanting to stay out late. In college I was teased for not drinking.

During my junior year of college I decided I wanted to study in Granada, Spain, for a year. My father had already agreed to let me live on campus during my first two years in college, so I thought maybe he’d trusted me enough to let me move to another country. When I approached him about my new ambition, he took a deep breath and rubbed his beard with the palm of his hand. He never liked to say no to his children. “Rania,” he said softly, “you know a woman should never travel on her own without a male representative.” He looked at me to make sure I understood what he was trying to tell me. I made sure to let him know I was disappointed. “I understand,” I answered him lowering my gaze to the floor. “You are my father, and I have to respect your decision.” As I got up to leave, my father called out, “but I trust you, and I know you won’t do anything to make me regret having let you go.”

In the car on the way to the airport, my father looked at me from the rear-view mirror. “Rania,” he said—I could see through the tint of his glasses that he was uncomfortable—“be careful of the Arab men you’ll meet in Europe.”

“Be careful of all men you meet,” my mother quickly added, turning back to look at me and then my father. “Be careful,” he whispered in my ear once more as he hugged me goodbye and patted my back roughly in that awkward way he had learned to express his affection.

* * *

There was something absolutely thrilling about being a 20-year-old Muslim girl on my own in a country where no one knew me. Granada was home to a large North African community, and despite being Egyptian, with my dark hair and deep-set black eyes, I have very Moroccan features. The Moroccan men who worked at the souvenir shops on Calle Elivra didn’t know what to make of me. They whispered “As salamu aleikum,” to me, waiting to see if I would return the traditional Islamic greeting. I returned it in a whisper with a nod of my head and an innocent smile.

They would wait to make sure I was there on my own, before they started a conversation, at which point I immediately understood why my father had warned me against the Arab men who had left their homes for a blurred dream of a life in Europe. Once they found out I was an Egyptian girl from New York who was studying in Granada for the year, they got straight to the point. Was I married? Did I live alone? Did I have any family in Spain? If I wasn’t married and was living alone without my family it meant I was fair game—a “loose” girl who could invite them over to her place for a good time They relaxed their shoulders and crossed their arms. The nerves that had made their voices quiver began to fade. “Why don’t we go out for a beer tonight,” they’d whisper. At that point, I’d step back and tell them sternly that I don’t drink. Their faces would whiten. They uncrossed their arms and began tugging on the bottom of their shirts, trying to flatten out the wrinkles like they were about to present themselves to my father to ask for my hand in marriage.

Now, only one question mattered to them: “Do you pray?” I had gone from being the loose girl with whom you could speak Arabic and fool around without having a guilty conscience to the pure and righteous girl you respect and marry. “Alhamdulilah, I pray five times a day,” I would answer as I stepped out of their stores. “Thank God,” they repeated. “It was really a pleasure, meeting you,” they called out after me. “The pleasure was mine,” I shouted back with my naive smile.

* * *

My experience in Spain prepared me somewhat for Dubai. My father had grown accustomed to me living abroad, but he was apprehensive about sending me to an Arab country to teach young males at a language school. I couldn’t blame him. I soon discovered that being an Muslim Arab girl on her own in an Arab country was much harder than being one in Europe. I was surprised to find that here I was getting what I call “studged”—stared at and judged—by the women more than by the men. Here I was, an Arab girl, with all her Arab features, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and Nike flip-flops, presenting a different answer to the regional equation that balances tradition and modernity. They glared at me with their black abeyas opened to reveal their leggings and glittery tops, flowing to the ground despite their 4-inch spiked heels. They walked like geishas through the mall, trying to hold their designer bags in place at the crest of their elbows, and their veils that were wrapped in a cone shape from falling too far back from the half-point mark of their heads. Their thick chestnut-dyed brown hair fell over their deep kohl-lined eyes just above their hot-pink lips, but I could still see them looking me up and down. I was plain, but somehow I was still a threat. Who did I think I was with my flip-flops and my leather-strapped watch?

In Spain I had worked at an International Expo, for the United Arab Emirates Pavilion, and when I got to Dubai, I reconnected with my male Emirati colleagues. We walked around Dubai—they in their traditional kanduras and me in my jeans. Other Emirati men looked at them with envy—probably because I looked Moroccan and the behavior of North African women in Dubai was quite notorious. The women looked at me disapprovingly. I pretended not to know, and asked my Emirati male friend why the women were looking at me like that. “They are thinking, ‘What does she have that I don’t?’ ” he said. “And what is that?” I asked with a smile. He sat back, and traced the handle of his coffee cup looking at the women passing by and then at me, “Charm.”

I came to Dubai to teach English to boys preparing for careers in the military. When I was first introduced to my class I walked into a room of 10 open-mouthed Emirati men in their early to late 20s. At 24, I was younger than most of my students. They sat frozen, afraid to say anything to each other in Arabic for fear that I might understand. “My name is Rania,” I began, and one student turned to whisper something to his friend sitting next to him, who stopped him from making a fool of himself by nudging him to keep quiet. I began by telling them that I was from New York, and they sat with their backs hunched watching my lips—afraid that they would miss a word that would reveal my true identity. One student finally gave up and relaxed his shoulders and asked, “Where are you really from?”

“I’m really from New York,” I answered.

“But your name is Arabic.”

“My parents are from Egypt,” I said reluctantly. There was a collective aha that rang through the class, as the students simultaneously dropped their pencils on their notebooks and sat back relaxed as if they’d just been given the answer to a riddle.

“Do you speak Arabic?” one student asked. I was curious to know what they’d say about me, so I told them that I didn’t. They turned to look at each other and smiled at one another as if I wasn’t standing right there in front of them and couldn’t understand the language of smiles.

As the weeks went on, I listened in on their pre-class conversations.

“She really is lovely.”

“She looks really nice in red.”

“I wish she’d wear the silk blue blouse she wore last week.”

“I wish she’d let her hair down and not tie it in a pony tail.”

One time, a student bought cake to the class to celebrate his fifth wedding anniversary. “Who else in here is married?” I asked. As the student proceeded to point out his married peers, one student stopped him and said through clenched teeth in Arabic, “No, don’t tell her I’m married.” I laughed, and the student’s face turned pale. “Why are you laughing?” he asked nervously. I looked at him and then the rest of the class, contemplating whether or not to let them in on my secret. I sat cross-legged on the edge of my desk. “You really are a funny bunch,” I said to them in Arabic.

The color drained from the top of their foreheads down to their chins, as if their heads were hourglasses being flipped over, and I could actually hear them swallow their embarrassment. Their mouths stayed open, and the back of their throats were getting dry. They looked at each other and then smiled nervously.

“Why didn’t you tell us you spoke Arabic?” asked Abdullah, the student who had wished I’d wear my blue blouse.

“Where’s the fun in that?” I asked with a smile. “Deciding what to wear in the morning has never been easier,” I added, and he tried to hide his embarrassment by covering his smile with his hand.

“Do you drink?” another student asked apprehensively. I was surprised by the question and didn’t see how it was related to the fact that I spoke Arabic.

“No,” I replied.

“Why?” asked another student, waiting excitedly for the answer.

“Because it’s haram,” I said seriously, and they all gave me their nods of approval. But they still seemed surprised to know that I knew drinking alcohol was forbidden in Islam. The same student who asked me if I drank came up to me later after class and crouched over my desk. He waited for the other students to leave. “Do you pray at home?” he asked. “Alhamdulilah,” I replied, thanking God. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up before heading out the door.

The students grew accustomed to me, and they enjoyed the experience of having a young Arab girl who understood them and with whom they could openly joke around. Many of these boys were married by the age of 20, and they’d been kept segregated from women until then. They seemed immature for their age. In a society where boys and girls “spoke” via Bluetooth in the malls, having a female friend—not a girlfriend—was a foreign concept to them. They appreciated the fact that they could be light-hearted with me, and that I could be good-humored with them without chastising them. Egyptians are known around the Arab world for making light of situations even if they aren’t funny, and they appreciated the fact that even though I was born and raised in the United States, I didn’t try to suppress my Egyptian half. They were learning that when they saw a girl in front of them who didn’t have her hair covered and who wasn’t in a black abeya, they didn’t have to think sexually by default and ask for Allah’s forgiveness.

* * *

The years I spent traveling on my own have made me realize that other Arabs find me both offensive and intriguing. They can’t seem to reconcile the idea of an American-born Egyptian-Muslim girl on her own in a foreign country without the eyes of her father on her all the time who also prays five times a day without anyone telling her to and who willingly chooses not to drink and stay out late in clubs. Here in Dubai, I’ve met many Arabs who are surprised that I don’t drink for religious reasons. “I used to be like you,” they’d tell me, as if they felt compelled to remind me they were once on the right path and that it would only be a matter of time before I found myself like them. To almost everyone I met, I wasn’t an Egyptian girl raised to be a Muslim—I was an American girl born to Egyptian parents, who made the effort to transmit their culture. I wanted to tell them that I owe the fact that I’ve been able to stay out of trouble abroad to my father, who taught me why I should be a Muslim and not why I had to be one.

Before leaving for Dubai, I traveled alone to Cairo to visit my father, who had retired to Egypt after a career at the United Nations. At passport control, I was met by a stern-looking officer with a white beard and a dark spot on his forehead, which many Muslim men develop over years of prostrating themselves during prayer. The spot on his forehead reminded me of my father. He flipped through my passport and saw all the European stamps from when I traveled during my time in Spain. “You’ve been all over,” he said seriously. “All alone?” he asked, showing his disapproval. We weren’t in Saudi Arabia and it wasn’t his business, so I didn’t let him bother me. “I guess you can call me Bint Batouta,” I joked with a smile, making reference to the 14th-century Moroccan geographer Ibn Batouta. His younger colleague laughed and turned to smile at me. “As staghfurallah,” I seek forgiveness from Allah, said the officer with the beard. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t tell whether he was asking for Allah’s forgiveness on my behalf for having traveled without a male who was accountable for me, or because of an inappropriate thought he had when he looked at me. As he handed my passport back to me my pinky finger brushed lightly against his by accident. “As staghfurallah,” I whispered quickly looking down at the ground. I had beat him to it. He looked at me coldly. His young colleague could barely suppress his laugh.

I walked away smiling, and then I stopped and looked back at the officer. His face was still flushed as he examined the passport of a woman veiled from head to toe standing with her four children. I wished I could rewind and replay the whole scenario again, except this time instead of calling myself the daughter of Batouta, I would have responded with the phrase my father once taught me—in a country where they don’t know you, hike up your galibeya and run wild through it. I decided against it when I saw my father standing behind the glass of the arrivals sections, waving his hand enthusiastically, his black eyes staring at me and his own galibeya resting neatly at his ankles.

Rania Moaz is a writer living in Dubai.

The most interesting tidbit today in the continuing story of the assassination, likely by Mossad, of Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, was that one Hamas official told an Arabic-language paper that his group believes an Arab government was behind the killing. (This is less surprising than it may sound: Hamas’s initial investigation concluded the same thing.) Specifically, the Hamas official told the paper that al-Mabhouh had been tracked by Jordanian and Egyptian agents. Let’s also not forget about the two ex-members of Fatah who were arrested: two men who now work for a construction company owned by Muhammad Dahlan, a powerful Palestinian Authority official who in the past has been linked to efforts to take down Hamas’s Gaza leadership. And let’s also not forget that the wide consensus remains that the Mossad was, at least, the prime mover behind the killing.

Other than that, the big news is Dubai’s first sanction: Israeli dual nationals, even those who carry non-Israeli passports, are now barred from entering. According to the Dubai police chief, Israelis not carrying Israeli passports will be detected by “physical features and the way they speak.” By “the way they speak,” I assume he means those talking in Hebrew. As for “physical features”? Up yours too, buddy.

Finally, the intrigue of the case has officially hit the Internet. Google searches of “Mossad” have increased fourfold in the past month. And, if you like, you can join the Facebook group I Was Also Part of the Dubai Assassination Squad. Though don’t be surprised if the Dubai police chief proceeds to bar you from his city, too.

Hamas: Jordan or Egypt Likely Behind Dubai Hit [Reuters/Vos Iz Neias?]
Dubai Restricts Israeli Entry After Killing [WSJ]

• A new scoop further implicates New York Gov. David Paterson in a longtime aide’s assault case, so we’re yet closer to a resignation and Richard Ravitch governorship. [NYT]

• U.S. diplomats formally spoke out against Israel’s plans to build new houses in East Jerusalem. [Haaretz]

• Dubai, which has been fairly open to traveling Israelis compared to other Arab countries, has barred Israelis and dual Israeli citizens from entering, in response to Mossad’s alleged role in that whole assassination business. More on this later today. [WP]

• Prominent columnist Richard Cohen rejects descriptions of “apartheid,” explaining why today’s Israel is not comparable to 1980s South Africa. [WP]

• Shark attacks in the United States are declining! This has to be good for the Jews, right? [WSJ]

As for what’s happened since then …

The big news today was that we finally learned how exactly Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh died: he was injected with a powerful muscle relaxant—one that is used in both death-penalty cocktails and hospitals—and then was suffocated.

The secondary news was that two of the 26 suspects (thought to be in or affiliated with the Mossad) entered the United States after the assassination took place.

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim, who has previously said he is “99 percent” certain that Mossad was behind al-Mabhouh’s death, called on Mossad chief Meir Dagan either to confirm or deny the Israeli intelligence agency’s involvement. So, in its way, did Haaretz, in an editorial. A bit of friendly advice for Mr. Tamim and the Haaretz editorial board: don’t hold your breaths.

Besides whether Mossad definitely did it, the other outstanding questions concern whether the incident will have adverse diplomatic consequences for Israel. The general consensus is that Israel can expect a slap on the wrist, but little more: al-Mabhouh, after all, was a bad guy, and anyway Mossad’s usefulness to Western countries far outweighs whatever bad publicity this may have caused. Still, the following are facts: Israelis are no longer allowed in Dubai; Australia abstained on a U.N. resolution related to the Goldstone Report specifically due to concerns over the fake Australian passports in the killing; and British police are interviewing dual British-Israeli citizens whose (fake) passports were used, in Tel Aviv. None of which is probably the best press in the world.

On the other hand, there is the take of high-ranking Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, of the Labor Party: “The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was not a failure. I don’t know who did it but what’s important is the end result.”

Slain Hamas Operative Was Drugged, Dubai Police Say [NYT]
Related: Murder in Dubai [Tablet Magazine]

• Israel’s plans to landmark two Biblical sites in the West Bank led to further skirmishes, as well as the Israeli police entering al-Aqsa mosque in the Temple Mount. [WSJ]

• Dubai police officials disclosed that Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was killed January 19th (by, most believe, the Mossad), died after being injected with a powerful muscle relaxant and asphyxiated. We’ll have much more on the Dubai Murder Mystery later today. [NYT]

• A rift between Hamas’s Syria-based leadership and its Gaza branch has been exacerbated by disagreements over the negotiations for Gilad Shalit, the captured Israeli soldier. [Haaretz]

• David Bankier, a Holocaust scholar at Yad Vashem, died. The 63-year-old had pioneered the study of ordinary Europeans’ cooperation with the Nazis. [NYT]

• A glass ceiling at a Manhattan hotel collapsed during a Purim party, injuring 10 guests. “Omg roof just collapsed at the purim event!” Tweeted Jersey Shore star Snooki. “We thought the dj was beatin the beat hardcore but nope, the roof couldn’t handle snooki and vin.” Welcome back from the weekend, folks! [NY Post/Vos Iz Neias?]

For now, assume it was the Mossad—the rest of the world certainly does. Because the assassins used forgeries of other countries’ passports, those nations are ostensibly angry with Israel, and because the Mossad looks to have been unusually inept (among other things, the assassins were captured on Dubai’s extensive security-camera system), the intelligence agency’s reputation has ostensibly suffered. At the end of the day, though, the Mossad is way too useful to the West for serious diplomatic repercussions to follow (though some strains are possible). And—inept or not, harmed reputation or not, and Mossad or not—the mission was certainly accomplished: like Generalissimo Francisco Franco before him, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is still dead.

The reason, however, that this story has lept to the front pages of Israeli and British tabloids and received extensive media coverage around the world, including in the United States (and especially on The Scroll!), is the less geopolitically significant cloak-and-dagger element—less geopolitically significant, but totally awesome. Here’s a primer on that fun stuff.

HOW DID THEY DO IT?

At least one member of the assassination squad—which according to Judith Miller’s reporting for Tablet Magazine trailed al-Mabhouh’s movements on two previous visits to Dubai—was waiting for al-Mabhouh at the Dubai airport terminal when he flew in from Damascus (where he lived, along with much of Hamas’s senior leadership) on January 19. Security cameras captured two assassins, wearing fake beards and looking like typical European tourists, checking into his hotel immediately after he did, even riding up the elevator with him to watch him enter his room, Room 230. An hour later, the squad had ascertained that the room opposite his was unoccupied, booked it, and used it as their staging ground. That was Room 237—why, yes, that is also the room with the creepy old lady in The Shining.

At around 8 p.m. on January 19, someone tried to reprogam the lock to al-Mabhouh’s door. At 8:24, al-Mabhouh arrived at the hotel after spending several hours out and about. At 8:48, four assassins—big men—departed the hotel. Al-Mabhouh was discovered the next day at 1:30 p.m. Nothing indicated forced entry. And a “Do Not Disturb” sign hung on the door of Room 230.

How was al-Mabhouh killed? Reports had suggested a drug-induced heart attack, others electrocution followed by asphyxiation, and still others just asphyxiation. We could always be pretty sure that he did not succumb to cancer, as Hamas initially claimed on January 20, when his corpse was first discovered.

Only yesterday did Dubai police announce that al-Mabhouh was injected with a muscle relaxant and then suffocated.

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE PASSPORTS?

The 26 suspects used passports from Britain, Ireland, France, Australia, and Germany. (Those entering Dubai with Israeli passports are, presumably, automatically red-flagged; travelers from those countries are not.) Most if not all of these were forgeries, though at least the single German one appears to be real. Most carried the names of real, innocent Israeli residents, usually ones who were actually, say, dual British-Israeli citizens and carried British passports. (Some of the real-life people are pissed, but at least one is amused.) The pictures on the passports (which are now in the public record—see here) are not pictures of those named on the passports. Instead, they are doctored pictures that resemble the assassins who held them enough that they were able to get past customs, but not so much that we can easily identify them now. In other words: well done, whoever you are.

BUT MAYBE IT WASN’T THE MOSSAD?

The assassins’ fake passports implicated innocent Israelis—would the Mossad really want to do that? Two of the killers, both holding fake Australian passports, reportedly escaped to Iran afterward, which you would not think would be the most hospitable place for two Mossad assassins on the lam. (Yesterday, we learned that two others entered the United States soon after the killing. That sounds more like it.) And two former Fatah security personnel connected to powerful P.A. official Muhammed Dahlan, who has in the past worked with covert U.S. forces to try to topple Hamas’s Gaza leadership, have also been arrested in connection with the plot.

Then there’s al-Mabhouh. The guy spent two decades wanted by the Mossad for the 1989 killing of two Israeli soldiers. The Egyptian and Jordanian authorities, to say nothing of the Palestinian Authority (which considers Hamas an enemy almost as much as Israel does), had it in for him, too. (Hamas’s initial investigation concluded that al-Mabhouh was killed by an Arab government.) In other words, this is someone used to keeping an anonymous profile. He was given to traveling in disguise, complete with colored contact lenses; it’s even rumored that he had cosmetic surgery so as to permit anonymity.

Given all this, he was astonishingly careless. He told an aide (since arrested) and his family of his travel plans, in detail. He traveled under his own name, and without bodyguards—a rarity for him. Allegedly, the bodyguards couldn’t get plane tickets. (Raise your hand if you remember the part in The Godfather when Michael’s two bodyguards suddenly flee from the front of his house in Sicily, and that’s how Michael knows his car’s ignition has been wired.)

All of this points to the prospect that, whether institutional or individual, something or someone that was not the Mossad nonetheless colluded with the Mossad in the killing. That is, assuming it was the Mossad that killed him.

BUT IT WAS MOSSAD, RIGHT?

That’s the smart money. It’s not just the clean method of dispatching the target (say what you want about the assassins appearing on the Dubai cameras, that we didn’t know how al-Mabhouh was killed until yesterday says something about the professionalism of his killers); or the way al-Mabhouh’s death fits perfectly into the Mossad’s pattern of assassinating Israel’s enemies; or Judith Miller’s report that it was the Mossad, The Times of London’s report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally approved the job, and the Dubai police chief’s assertion that he is “99 percent” sure it was Mossad, followed by his claim that he possesses DNA evidence of at least one assassin. It’s all of the above.

There are two major aspects of the job that were uncharacteristic of the Mossad: first, being exposed as they have been, and, second, sending 26 people to do the job instead of, like, three. The former fact can be explained simply by Dubai’s having an incredibly extensive security-camera system, so that not getting picked up on it would be extremely difficult; and in fact, the assassins gave every indication of knowing they were probably being taped. The large list of suspects could be explained, as Haaretz spy correspondent Yossi Melman suggested, as the Dubai police chief’s deliberately throwing out false or tenuous evidence. For example, the Mossad agents escaping to Iran: is this something that did not happen, but the Dubai police chief wants us to think happened? Or that Mossad wants us to think happened? Or maybe this was just a really complicated job, one that happened to require the skills of over two dozen operatives?

To believe that it was not the Mossad, you must believe that some country or entity other than Israel had: a motive to assassinate al-Mabhouh strong enough to trump fears of being implicated (while also knowing it was so valuable to the rest of the world that diplomatic consquences would be minimal); the information on which dual British-Israeli citizens carry British passports; the manpower and money to orchestrate an extensive, months-long, complex operation; and the training and expertise to stalk and stake out al-Mabhouh, kill him so that his death could not be confirmed for almost 24 hours and his murder could not be confirmed for over a week, and manage not to have a single agent, out of as many as 26, be apprehended. Could Egypt’s spies pull it off this well? Could the CIA, for that matter?

Anyway, the market has spoken: Mossad’s job opening Webpage has never been busier, and sales of “Don’t Mess With The Mossad” t-shirts are up tenfold.

Spy correspondent Yossi Melman holds out the possibility that some of this information—nearly all of which originates with the Dubai police force—could be tenuous or deliberately (or accidentally) false:

It is hard to believe that, if the Mossad intelligence agency carried out the operation, the planners were so irresponsible as to dispatch nearly 30 agents and to expose an entire select operational unit on one assassination operation. … Either the new revelations are another salvo in Dubai’s psychological warfare or the police investigators are groping in the dark.

Another intelligence expert agreed: “Mossad believes if two people can do something instead of three people, then send two.”

We’re learning more and more about the folks whose names were used on those fake passports: much of it is amusing, until you imagine that it was your name, at which point it seems less enjoyable. These folks’ names are now in the public domain as associated with the killing, after all, although these names are matched to the pictures of the actual suspects. Adam Korman visited the United Arab Emirates three times in the past year … except Korman, an Australian-Israeli dual national, has never been to Dubai; someone who had a forgery of his Australian passport was the frequent flyer (“I have been frightened and shocked since receiving the news,” says Korman.) Then again, Philip Carr, an Israeli citizen whose British passport was faked, is taking the incident more in stride: “It’s a bit of a shock,” he said, “it’s surprising, but it’s more interesting than annoying.” He added: “That picture is certainly not me. He’s wearing glasses. I’ve got 20-20 vision.” (Also, for the record, France believes that all three of the French passports used by suspects were forged.)

The effect the incident could have on Israeli diplomatic relations and intelligence-gathering is starting to look minimal. A senior Israeli intelligence official tells the Washington Times, “There is a lot of hyperventilating about this in the public arena,” but “the countries that coordinate the war on terror with allies like Israel and the United States and Europe are not as exercised about this.”

Al-Mabhouh was a disguise expert, who routinely wore colored contact lenses and dyed his hair, and possessed multiple identities; he even underwent cosmetic surgery. Yet most reports have it that al-Mabhouh traveled as himself, undisguised, and without bodyguards. Something remains fishy, in other words.

Finally, while it’s reasonable to believe that Israel benefits from al-Mabhouh’s death—he was a prime weapons smuggler for Hamas, after all—the entity that most unequivocally comes out ahead in all this is the company that sells kitschy pro-Mossad t-shirts: sales are reportedly up ten-fold.

Inquiry Grows in Dubai Assassination [NYT]
Was Mossad on a Fantastic Adventure in Dubai? [Haaretz]
Israeli Official: Mossad Hit Didn’t Upset Intel Ties [Washington Times]

• In public and private, the Obama administration tsk-tsked Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to landmark two Biblical sites in Israel-controlled West Bank. [AP/Haaretz]

• Israel has become crucial to California’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, with candidate Tom Campbell’s support for the Jewish state being questioned by two rivals. [LAT]

• Now that the New York Times has published a fairly damning story regarding New York Gov. David Paterson and his alleged intervention in a longtime aide’s assault case, it’s worth noting that the lieutenant governor—who would assume the job if Paterson leaves—is Richard Ravitch, a Jew. [NYT]

• Selma G. Hirsh, a longtime staffer and then official at the American Jewish Committee, died at 92. [AP/NYT]

• Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-New York) decries Republican health-care “chutzpah.” It’s really funny (and great, if you happen to agree with Weiner’s analysis).

The big news today is the Dubai police’s disclosure of 15 additional suspects in the assassination (likely carried out by Mossad) of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, bringing the total to 26. These suspects’ passports—which, according to host countries, were “issued in an illegal and fraudulent manner”—were from Britain, France, Ireland, and (this is a new one) Australia. One of the Australian passports was that of Marcus Korman, who lives in Tel Aviv … and has never been to Dubai. “It’s identity theft—simply unbelievable,” Korman told a reporter.

Yet even as Korman and the others whose passports were forged supply a compelling anti-assassination human interest story, the Jerusalem Post reports that diplomatic tensions related to the incident are falling; Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the whole thing didn’t come up during a lengthy meeting with his European counterparts in Brussels (instead, they discussed Iran and the Palestinians). Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman theorize that European political leaders will be talked out of their anger by European intelligence leaders, who know that Mossad does far more good than harm: “Israeli intelligence can get its contacts in London’s MI6 and Berlin’s BND to put in a good word, pointing to favors Israel regularly does for European security agencies. The Mossad might even unveil dossiers showing how dangerous Hamas is to everyone.”

Raviv and Melman also see no reason to believe this will be Mossad’s final assassination:

Mossad, on the other hand, might well do again what it apparently did in Dubai. The agency would prefer not to—and certainly they would rather choose cities and streets not covered by CCTV systems and competent police forces. But Israel’s spymasters don’t mind being perceived by their enemies as still running “Murder, Inc.” from Warsaw to Bangkok, and from Paris to Dubai. And while they don’t relish risky assassinations, when the target is important enough, Mossad’s chiefs have been known to say, “Nothing is impossible.”

Meanwhile: where previously a couple of Fatah or ex-Fatah folks have been implicated in the plot, now a Hamas man—an associate of al-Mabhouh’s in Syria, in fact—was reportedly arrested by the Syrians on Dubai’s behalf. The man, Mahmoud Nasser, was apparently aware of al-Mabhouh’s plans, and arrived in Dubai shortly before he did. Hamas, on the other hand, denies he was arrested. Well, somebody’s not telling the truth.

Dubai Now Seeking 26 Suspects in Hamas Killing [Reuters/NYT]
Assassin from Tel Aviv: ‘I’m Shocked’ [Ynet]
Diplomatic Fallout Surrounding Mabhouh Hit Receding [JPost]
Israel’s Hit Squads [Atlantic.com]

• Dubai has 15 new suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, all of whom carried European or—in a new twist—Australian passports. The Scroll will have a full update later today. [Ynet]

• The Los Angeles Times press critic argues that New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner should be kept in his job—and not booted since his son joined the IDF—because he is a scrupulous writer and reporter. [LAT]

• It turns out that Israel’s most valuable Palestinian informant during the Second Intifada was the son of a prominent Hamas founder and official. [Haaretz]

• At least one Palestinian group has vowed to resume attacks in Israel in response to the landmarking of Abraham’s and Rachel’s tombs. [Ynet]

• Jewish-American leader Mortimer B. Zuckerman continued maneuvers toward running for Senate from New York as a Republican. [NYT]

Some of the biggest news broken today about the Dubai assassination of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh comes courtesy Judith Miller, who reported in Tablet Magazine that Mossad tried to kill al-Mabhouh (at least) twice before. She also placed the successful plot in the context of Mossad’s general policy of terrorist and terrorist-sponsor assassination, as did the Los Angeles Times, which concluded: “The policy is not likely to change, analysts and diplomats say, because such killings, from Israel’s point of view, have proved effective in fighting a nonconventional enemy. And despite legal questions and international backlash, Israel has usually emerged unscathed.”

But this just may have scathed it. While plenty in both the Israeli and British presses have celebrated Mossad’s “““““alleged””””” killing, there are at least six people who are not so happy: those folks, all with dual British-Israeli citizenship, whose faked passports were used by the assassins “were completely unaware of this abuse,” notes Der Spiegel. “They are shocked and are demanding an investigation.” The European Union condemned the faked passports, though its official statement did not mention Israel. Oh, and Iran used the occasion to argue, “Israel’s existence is itself based on terrorist activities.” But it does that every Tuesday.

Some may have called for Mossad chief Meir Dagan to step down, but he is way too important to Israel’s low-temperature conflict with Iran to be sacked. In Israel, the plot may on some level be controversial, but opposition leader Tzipi Livni rallied around the flag: “that a terrorist was killed, and it doesn’t matter if it was in Dubai or Gaza, is good news,” she said.

Is that true? In Slate, Shmuel Rosner says it’s too soon to tell if al-Mabhouh’s death is worth the ostensible hit Mossad is taking to its reputation. And Der Spiegel—whose lengthy treatment of the story is amply worth your time if you’ve read this far—makes a great point:

Mossad was apparently prepared to accept the possibility that the identities of its agents would be revealed. In fact, it was even willing to jeopardize the security of Israel’s own citizens, whose very protection it cites as justification for its actions. … the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh must have been very important to Jerusalem.

Assassination Tango [Tablet Magazine]
Israel Relies on a Deadly Specialty [LAT]
A Mossad Operation Gone Awry? [Der Spiegel]
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Dubai Assassination [Slate]

• U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that no military strike could completely halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. [Haaretz]

• Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman dodged E.U. questions over Mossad’s suspected assassination of Hamas’s chief weapons man, which involved the use of forged European passports. A complete update of the story will follow on The Scroll today. [AP/WSJ]

• Defense Minister Ehud Barak heads for America today for security discussions with senior U.S. officials as well as a meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. [Haaretz]

• Rabbi Menachem Porush, head of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism political party, died at 93. [AP/NYT]

• Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky, the Israeli ice dancing duo, finished in 10th place in the Vancouver Olympics after skating, last night, to the theme from Schindler’s List (here’s video). [JTA]

Though he apparently did not realize 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.”

Last November, 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 accompanied the target, reporting on where he went in China, whom he met and contacted, and where he stayed, dined, and slept.

Israel has remained silent about the murder, in keeping with its longstanding policy of not commenting on such operations, but an Israeli source suggests 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 19th of a man who had been on Israel’s “most wanted” list for almost two decades. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had been on the run ever since he helped to kidnap and later kill two Israeli soldiers on leave in 1989.

But what put al-Mabhouh so prominently in Israel’s sights were not his past deeds, but his leading role in the supply of weapons from Iran. As an Israeli reporter put it to me, al-Mabhouh’s death was a “two-fer”—a man who from Israel’s standpoint deserved killing not only for having murdered Israelis in the past, but also because he was buying weapons from Iran that would be used to kill Israelis in the future.

Al-Mabhouh’s assassination in Dubai is the latest in a series of Israeli killings of individuals from Hamas or Hezbollah who traffic in arms and intelligence from the Islamic Republic. The assassination campaign, which would have been approved at the highest levels of government, seems to be part of a broader strategy to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program and confound Teheran’s efforts to surround Israel with militant enemies on its northern border in Lebanon and to the south in Gaza.

In December, two Hamas officials were killed in a mysterious blast in Beirut. Last year, Sudan, which is allied with Iran and openly hosts Hamas, accused Israel of attacking a convoy in a remote mountainous region in northeastern Sudan. The Associated Press and other news agencies reported that strikes were aimed at convoys that were allegedly filled with weapons bound for Hamas. The Mossad has also been linked to the disappearance of Iranian nuclear officials, though it is unclear whether they were killed or have defected to the West.

Most famously, the Mossad has been accused of having assassinated Imad Mughniyeh, the senior Hezbollah official responsible for the bombing of the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut in 1983, soon after he attended a gathering at the home of the Iranian cultural attaché in Damascus, not far from the headquarters of Syrian military intelligence. Mughniyeh, who was said to be hyper-attentive to his personal security, was decapitated in 2008 when the headrest of his car seat exploded.

Six months later, Mossad, in cooperation with special forces, struck again at the heart of the Syrian establishment. According to Uzi Mahnaimi, writing in London’s Sunday Times this weekend, General Mohammed Suleiman, Syria’s liaison to North Korea’s nuclear program, was shot and killed by a sniper firing from a yacht sailing by as he was relaxing in the back garden of his villa on the Mediterranean shore.

Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli daily, was first to report that members of the assassination team that killed Mabhouh on January 19th had made at least two prior visits to Dubai before the trip last month. Over the weekend, Emirati officials confirmed that 11 of the assassination squad members had used cloned foreign passports to visit Dubai at least twice before the January visit.

Also over the weekend, Emirati and Hamas officials, both apparently eager to blame the victim rather than themselves for failing to prevent the murder, criticized Mabhouh for having been lax about his own security. In Gaza, Salah Bardawil, a Hamas official, complained to reporters that Mabhouh had broken Hamas security rules by calling his relatives and telling them he was heading to Dubai. Moreover, he said, Mabhouh should not have been booking his hotel room over the Internet. Piling on, Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s loquacious police chief, scolded both Mabhouh and Hamas for having failed to take “basic security precautions” to protect so important an official. “If he had at least one person with him, [the suspects] would not have been able to kill him,” Khalfan Tamim told Gulf News, a Dubai-based English language paper. “It was clear that he had that feeling that he was anonymous and he was not careful enough,” the police chief charged in an apparent attempt to shift blame for the murder from his emirate to Mabhouh and his organization.

When the news first broke, senior Israeli officials neither confirmed nor denied an assertion by Dubai’s Lt. Gen. Khalfan Tamim that he was “99 percent certain” that Israel had dispatched a professional hit team of at least “seven or more people holding passports from different European countries” to kill Mabhouh in Dubai. Over the weekend, Khalfan Tamim elaborated, saying that several of the assassination team members had used their passports in Dubai at least twice before. About three months ago, he said, confirming the Israeli newspaper account, agents using stolen identities had followed Mabhouh from Dubai to China. About two months ago, he added, they had followed him on another visit to Dubai. It was unclear whether this was the trip Mabhouh had made for his medical treatment, which an Israeli source said took place last summer.

On Friday, Yedioth Ahronoth disclosed that the team had tracked its prey to Dubai at least twice for what Smadar Perry, the well-connected Israeli journalist, called a “training mission,” and in an earlier, interrupted attempt to kill him. On that second visit, only a “technical” glitch in the mission, the precise nature of which she did not disclose, enabled Mahbouh to escape death.

The prior visits to Dubai and the physical positioning of the team members strongly suggest that the Mossad was well aware of the CCTV cameras that Dubai has installed not only at this and other luxury hotels frequented by foreigners, but at airports, shopping malls, and throughout public spaces of the city known for intelligence intrigue and as a commercial entrepot for businessmen of all nationalities, including Israel. What apparently surprised the Mossad was the speed with which the Dubai police traced the movements of the Israeli agents in Dubai. The Emirati police have widely circulated a 30-minute video that outlines the Mossad plot and players as its officials understand it from the moment the agents entered the country until their departure a day later.

Watching the video, it seems clear that at least one female member of the hit team, a woman identified by the cloned passport she carried as Gail Folliard, an ostensible Irish citizen, knew she was being taped by the hotel’s security cameras. While photographed in several different guises, she was readily identifiable. At one point, in fact, she seems to be smiling coyly at the camera. But a second female team member was captured only briefly on video and remains unidentified due to her fleeting appearance in oversized sunglasses, broad-brimmed hat, and loose-fitting clothes.

Details are still emerging about precisely what happened in Mabhouh’s hotel room at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, where his body was discovered by the hotel’s staff a day after the murder. Although it is still unclear how the Israeli agents gained entry to his room and how precisely they killed him—contradictory reports suggest either electrocution or smothering—Mabhouh had taken some precautions to hide his movements since he had referred in an interview with Al Jazeera several months earlier to at least three Israeli attempts to eliminate him. Mabhouh had checked into the hotel using an alias and was said to have propped a heavy arm chair up against his hotel room door before retiring for the night. He had also requested a room without a balcony or external mode of entry.

It has been widely reported that the agents left a “Do Not Disturb” sign on Mabhouh’s door, a gesture intended to ensure that the body would not be discovered for several hours and to give themselves sufficient time for a clean getaway. In addition, they managed to latch the door to Mahbouh’s room from the inside. How this feat was performed is also unclear. One Israeli familiar with intelligence operations suggested that a woman agent’s tiny hand might have reached into the small gap between the door and its frame and fastened the chain after she had left the room. Perhaps the hand belongs to the still mysterious agent whom the CCTV cameras have failed to identify, by either her real name or her alias.

While Israeli reporters have continued their breathless reporting on the operation under the government’s tight censorship rules, facts and myths about the operation that has fascinated the world, infuriated Hamas, and been quietly condoned by many Arab states, have continued leaking out. The British government, for instance, has adamantly denied that it was tipped off in advance of the mission, or that it was aware that the Mossad had altered photos on genuine passports issued to British-Israelis for the Mossad agents to use. Given Mossad’s secretive modus operandi, Whitehall’s denials seem credible. It is unlikely that the spy agency would have alerted anyone, let alone a country that lambasted Israel two decades ago for having used stolen British passports in Mossad missions, to an operation that the spy agency clearly hoped might leave no fingerprints.

The same skepticism must apply to press reports that the Mossad was working with the Palestinian Authority to kill Mahbouh. Such reports fail what one Israeli source called the “smell test.” Yes, two Palestinians from Gaza—Ahmad Hasnin and Anwar Shekhaiber, both of whom had apparently worked for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah—were arrested and quickly extradited to Dubai soon after the murder and their flight to the Jordanian capital, Amman. And yes, the two had lived in Gaza until Hamas seized control there in 2007 and expelled the P.A. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported over the weekend that Hasnin and Shekhaiber had moved to Dubai from Gaza and worked for a real estate company owned by a senior official of Fatah, the main P.A. faction headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas’s bitter rival and foe.

Still, it is improbable that Mossad would have involved the P.A. in such a politically sensitive, potentially explosive operation. A more plausible explanation is that the two Palestinians, only one of whom was photographed talking to the putative head of the Mossad mission, were freelancing, that is, picking up some quick cash by providing logistical support for a member of the Israeli team. A source close to Jordanian intelligence suggested to me that “there are three possibilities here”: first, that the “Palestinians were affiliated with the P.A. and authorized to cooperate,” which is possible but not likely; second, that “they were freelancing for pay, which is most likely”; or third, that they were pawns in an internal struggle within Hamas, “which is preposterous—which doesn’t mean that it can’t be true.”

The swift extradition of the two Palestinians is easier to understand. Jordan and Dubai are close allies and politically like-minded. The rulers of the two countries are also linked by marriage. The second wife of Sheihk Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler and the United Arab Emirates’ prime minister and vice president, is Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, the daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan and a half-sister of Jordan’s current ruler, King Abdullah II.

Moreover, Jordan has taken a dim view of operations by Mossad on its own territory ever since 1997, when Mossad agents tried and failed to kill Hamas leader Khaled Mashal during a visit to Jordan. On that botched mission, an Israeli Mossad agent blew poison into Mashal’s ear. But the two agents were caught and a furious King Hussein demanded that an antidote be handed over in time to save Mashal, who now leads Hamas’ more radical political wing in Damascus. The failed operation severely strained relations between Israel and Jordan, which remains one of the former’s key regional allies.

As for the rest of the Arab states, their silence about the alleged Mossad operation has been deafening. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and even Syria have said little about the murder, perhaps preferring Israel’s policy of targeted assassinations to its more aggressive expressions of displeasure with programs or actions that endanger its citizens—including Operation Orchard, the 2007 military strike that destroyed Syria’s covert nuclear reactor, and its incursions into Lebanon and Gaza.

Meanwhile, countries whose passports were used as cover for the Mossad agents have continued to feign outrage and go through the motions of protest. Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to London, for instance, was summoned to the Foreign Office for a dressing down. Dubai’s police chief Khalfan Tamim is still calling upon Interpol to issue a “red notice” for the arrest of Mossad chief Meir Dagan, the 65-year-old former military officer who emigrated to Israel from Novosibirsk, Siberia.

Appointed director of the state spy agency by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Dagan has returned to the lethal covert murders for which the Mossad was once known. Such operations had fallen into disrepute, but they have been revived under Dagan’s stewardship, with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s blessing. The prime minister, who meets with the Mossad chief at least once a week to review Mossad operations, would have had to approve an operation of this nature, as the Sunday Times reported this weekend. In response to Dubai’s call for the arrest and extradition of Dagan, an unnamed spokesman in Bibi’s office was quoted in the Israeli press as saying that the prime minister retained “full confidence” in Meir Dagan.

Another report has it that two ex-Fatah security members cooperated with Mossad. These Palestinian men currently work for a company owned by prominent Fatah security official Mohammed Dahlan, who, oh so surprisingly, denies all involvement.

Dubai police say they’re on the verge of announcing definitively, based on cell phone and credit card records, that it was indeed Mossad; for now, they say they are “99 percent” sure. (For the record, Mabhouh could have made it a bit more difficult on his killer: booking his plane over the Internet and telling his family which hotel he was staying at are not ideal things to do if you’re trying to stay alive.)

Even so, the United Arab Emirates—the federation in which Dubai is a member—is requesting active help from the European Union in the investigation, specifically related to the forged European passports the assassins carried. Then again, the single German passport used by an assassin was reported real, which means Germany loses this particular umbrage sweepstakes to Britain, France, and Ireland.

The increasing consensus that it was Mossad has caused the beginnings of diplomatic rifts between Israel and various European countries, particularly those whose passports were faked as part of the plot. Said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner: “The case shows the need for a Palestinian state, immediately.”

Below is the trailer for al-Jazeera’s 30-minute documentary on the spy-thriller element of the plot; for the whole thing, go here.

Oh, and yeah: “There is nothing linking Israel to the assassination of Mabhouh,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. Mossad itself remains mum, which is generally how it do.

Meir Dagan: The Mastermind Behind Mossad’s Secret War [Times of London]
Dubai Police: Soon We’ll Have Proof Against Mossad [JPost]
U.A.E. ‘Deeply Concerned’ Over Passports Used in Hamas Leader’s Assassination [LAT]

Earlier: The Great Dubai Murdery Mystery

• The French and Spanish foreign ministers are the most prominent supporters of an initiative that would see the European Union recognize a Palestinian state within 18 months. Israel is opposed. [Haaretz]

• One report states that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally approved Mossad’s killing of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud Mabhouh. (Much more on the Dubai murder mystery at 10am.) [Times of London]

• Despite an anti-blockade backlash throughout the Arab world, Egypt is moving ahead with plans to block off smuggling tunnels into Gaza. [WSJ]

• Alexander Haig, a secretary of state in the Reagan administration, died at 85, and was remembered as a friend and fond admirer of Israel. [JPost, Haaretz]

• In case you didn’t see it yesterday, you really must read about Yitta Schwartz, of Kiryas Joel, New York, who died in January at 93. A Holocaust survivor, Satmar Hasid, and mother of 16, she is estimated to have—from a 75-year-old daughter to a week-old great-great-grandson—over 2,000 living descendants. [NYT]

• Yesterday’s U.N. report—which concluded that Iran is likely trying to build nuclear weapons—is by far the strongest statement about Iran’s non-peaceful intentions to come out of the international body. [NYT]

• Some U.S.-originated credit card accounts are under investigation in connection with the Dubai killing. [WSJ]

• Since passports from Britain, Ireland, France, and Germany were used by the Dubai assassins, suspicions that it was a Mossad plot have ratcheted up diplomatic tensions between those countries and Israel. [WSJ]

• Australian Torah Bright won the gold medal in the women’s halfpipe at Vancouver. She is Mormon, not Jewish. [NYT]

•January 19th: Mahmoud Mabhouh, a Hamas military commander living in Syria who played a crucial role in smuggling weapons to the group (including from Iran), arrives in Dubai. Unusually, he has no bodyguards and is not traveling under an alias; reportedly, his bodyguards couldn’t get plane tickets. No, really, that’s what some reports say.

• January 20th: Mabhouh is found dead in his hotel room (we will subsequently learn that he was killed the night before). I’ve seen reports that he was shot and that he was asphyxiated and electrocuted.

• January 20th: Hamas announces that Mabhouh is dead … from cancer.

• By February 1st, some Hamas officials have suggested that Mossad was behind it. The main focus at this point, however, is whether Mabhouh’s death is likely to slow the flow of arms into Gaza. The consensus: probably, but not definitely.

• February 2nd: After an investigation, Hamas believes that Mabhouh died at the hands of an Arab government (he was wanted by Jordanian and Egyptian authorities).

• Even so, on February 3rd Hamas suspends (already severely stalled) negotiations over kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in protest of the alleged assassination.

• February 4th: Dubai’s police chief pledges to get a warrant for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if it turns out that Mossad was indeed behind the killing.

• February 12th: Reneging on past proclamations from his group, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal insists that Mossad was behind Mabhouh’s death.

Okay, so to recap: Mabhouh, a Hamas weapons guy, is killed in Dubai, but Hamas wants the world to think he died naturally; when that becomes untenable, Hamas wants the world to believe that Mossad or some Arab government killed him. In fact, Mossad, any number of Arab governments, Fatah, and God knows who else would have had reason to want him dead.

Buckle up: now’s when things really start to get crazy.

• February 15th: Dubai releases some information, including photos, on 11 suspects: all of them carried European passports.

• February 16th: it becomes clear that at least some of the passports identified with the suspects are fake. Less clear is what that could possibly mean.

• February 17th: we learn that Mabhouh was at the top of Mossad’s target list. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman issues a classic non-denial denial when asked if Mossad was involved. Of course, since it isn’t really his purview and since he probably shouldn’t be trusted anyway, there is no reason to think anyone would have told Lieberman anything, no matter what.

• February 17th: the passports of the six “British” suspects are all fake, and bear the names of Israelis who are known not to have been involved in the killing. More than ever, signs point to Mossad. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledges an investigation and calls in the Israeli ambassador; Germany and France, whose passports were also used, are also pissed.

• Oh, my. Is that footage of the assassins checking into Mabhouh’s hotel the same day Mabhouh did? They trailed him from the airport and stayed in the room directly across from him? And they were wearing fake beards? This is nuts!

• Today, February 18th, this story is the talk of Israel, with most assuming that Mossad killed Mabhouh. Folks are calling for the Mossad chief to step down (“Mossad is Supposed to Gather Intelligence, Not Sow Death”). They are also angry at the thought that Mossad may have implicated innocent people in the incident with those faked passports. Naturally, and as always, Mossad will neither confirm nor deny involvement.

So that’s where we are.

And now, the real question: did Mossad do it?

It certainly looks that way. Hamas still maintains yes. So does the Dubai police, at least publicly. However, one Hamas official believes Fatah is involved. Hell, there’s even a Hamas agent reportedly under arrest in Syria for aiding Mossad in the assassination. Neal Ungerleider has a great discussion of whether or not it was Mossad:

The Israeli intelligence agency certainly has the motives and the means. The modus operandi also fits prior Mossad operations. However, certain facts don’t add up. … what security agency would implicate their own citizens [with the fake passports]? Additionally, there is always the possibility of a false flag operation—where a foreign intelligence agency killed al-Mabhouh for their own purposes, while making it look like a Mossad killing.

Put it this way: you would find it difficult to get me to put money on it being anyone other than Mossad. Although one theory has, so far, gone un-suggested, so allow me to be the first:

Maggie erschießt Mr Burns – MyVideo

• The assassination has become the top tabloid story in Israel, with many citizens bemoaning and criticizing the mission and work of Mossad, which is usually treated reverently. [NYT]

• And in London, Israel’s ambassador was called in for a discussion about the fake British passports. [NYT]

• A top U.S. diplomat met with Syrian leader Bashar Assad in Damascus as part of the thawing that will soon produce a new U.S. ambassador. [WSJ]

• Several prominent American, German, and Australian Catholic scholars privately asked Pope Benedict XVI to delay the sainthood of Pope Pius XII—the Holocaust Pope—for the sake of Catholic-Jewish relations. [JTA]

So when Bibi Netanyahu began his speech to the packed auditorium in prime television time by saying that he believed peace talks with the Palestinians, without preconditions, would begin in the next few weeks, participants perked up. But he did not elaborate. Instead, he delivered a rambling ode to the joys of rediscovering one’s Jewish roots and heritage. The government, he said, would soon begin building walking paths to link the hundreds of biblical sites throughout Israel. “Education begins first of all with the bible,” he said. “So get to know the land,” he counseled, urging Israelis to take to the roads with their children in tow to visit the country’s historic Jewish sites.

This being Israel, the jokes soon followed. Bibi’s oration quickly became known as the “mushroom speech,” as one of the student volunteers who had shepherded foreign guests through the conference called it.

“Sarah wrote it,” quipped another irate Israeli, referring to recent press reports about the prime minister’s wife, which accuse her of alleged undue influence over her husband’s policy and personnel choices and allege she demands free meals at some of the country’s best restaurants.

“Take a Hike, Israel!” screamed the first-edition headline of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest-circulation daily paper.

While foreigners at the conference were puzzled by the prime minister’s choice of topics, Israeli participants were furious. For four days, guests had held wide-ranging, brutally frank, often hair-raising discussions about the myriad challenges facing the Jewish state. Conferees were told, for instance, that Israel might soon have to confront not only a historically unprecedented threat from a nuclearized, unstable, and militant Iran, but also a historic decision about whether to return territory Israel has occupied since the 1967 war to the Palestinians. And Hezbollah is said to have replenished its conventional arsenal with some 40,000 rockets and missiles and has proven willing to use them to overcome Israel’s overwhelming air superiority.

At home, participants here were told, domestic violence is increasing and questions are being raised about whether Israel’s strong economic growth can be sustained. For the first time, this conference expanded the definition of national security to include Israel’s social welfare and educational systems and its treatment of the elderly and Arab Israelis, who constitute almost 20 percent of the population.

“Yet Bibi picked this moment to tell us that we should reconnect with our heritage and take our sons on hikes?” said one angry Israeli.

Netanyahu’s limp performance and sophomoric lecture on the need for Jewish patriotism was particularly resented in light of the fact that Israeli prime ministers have often used the Herzliya gathering to deliver major national-security news. The prime minister’s own office, moreover, had spent days raising expectations about the speech, telling Israeli reporters that Netanyahu would deliver a major policy statement here. “We were expecting Churchill,” said one veteran commentator. “And Bibi was no Churchill.”

A more charitable interpretation of the speech was that, however ineptly, Bibi was trying to reconnect Israelis with their Zionist roots at a time when he may soon ask fellow Israelis to relinquish what many of them consider the sacred biblical land of Israel.

But there was little charity in the lobby of the auditorium after the conference’s close. It had been an intense week, participants agreed. Discussions here included the most varied program and some of the highest quality debate that the Herzliya Conference, now celebrating its 10th year, had ever staged.

The prime minister never once mentioned the topic that had dominated so much of the informal discussion here—the threat posed by a militant, nuclearized Iran. Earlier in the day, however, Israel’s vice prime minister, Moshe Yaalon, argued that to persuade Iran to end or suspend its nuclear weapons program, Iranian leaders would have to conclude that their own survival was at stake. The Iranian regime had suspended its nuclear program at least once before, he said—in 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq in response to allegation that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. The program had been suspended for at least three years, he told conferees. It resumed only in 2006 after the U.S. war effort in Iraq seemed on the verge of failure and Israel faced withering internal and foreign criticism for its incursion in Lebanon.

Yaalon, a retired chief of Israel’s armed forces, seemed eager to keep Iran guessing about what Israel, which is widely believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, would or would not do if Teheran’s mullahs do not stop their own nuclear enrichment program and advanced to a nuclear-bomb threshold. “It is important to continue to make clear to the extremist Iranian regime that all options are still on the table,” he said, “and that ignoring the international demands can end in the worst way.”

Fayyad speaking at the Herzliya Conference.
CREDIT: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

February 2, 11:20 p.m. ET: Israel’s favorite Palestinian showed up at the Herzliya Conference today. In an appearance many called courageous, Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, surrounded by a phalanx of Israeli and Palestinian bodyguards, accepted an invitation to be a keynote speaker at the annual gathering of Israel’s establishment, where he appealed for peace.

Ignoring threats and condemnations by his rivals in Hamas for his decision to appear here in the packed auditorium, Fayyad called upon Israel to stop expanding settlements on the land of the future Palestinian state.

His message was not particularly new. Nor was that of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who also appeared to restate Israel’s official position. But both men made gestures that went beyond what the stalled peace process would seem to allow. Fayyad did that simply by showing up on Tuesday night, rather than canceling, as he has done before. And Barak delivered a shot across the bow of his fractious coalition government by warning that unless progress on the peace front occurred now, Israel would either become a “bi-national” or an “apartheid state” headed inexorably into global isolation.

A few participants gasped to hear the defense minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government use the language of Israel’s most virulent critics. Apartheid state? One of the panels here at Herzliya had described the effort to paint Israel’s occupation policies in the West Bank as analogous to South African apartheid as part of a “soft war” against the Jewish state.

One veteran European diplomat called the dueling appearances by Barak and Fayyad at the highly charged conference a “mood-changing moment.” “Both sides were signaling what they really wanted to do,” the diplomat said. Now they just have to figure out how to do it.

But some participants were decidedly less impressed. “An investment banker trying to calm a skittish board” is how Fayyad came across to Berel Rodal, the entrepreneur and former Canadian government official. But many here seemed willing to give Fayyad, the soft-spoken, articulate technician in a grey banker’s suit, the benefit of the doubt. “He was laying his cards on the table and in effect negotiating in public, saying what he would say if there were negotiations,” said Richard Gordon, president of the American Jewish Congress. But there aren’t any negotiations, of course—for reasons that both sides seem eager to blame on everyone but themselves.

A veteran Israeli official noted that both Barak and Fayyad were uttering the right words about the need for peace and compromise and to battle extremism and establish security and prosperity for both peoples. But while Barak, given his subordinate status in Bibi’s government, was unable to do anything to implement his strongly-stated opinions, Fayyad was working hard on the West Bank.

Fayyad stressed his determination to prepare the Palestinian people for statehood by building the civic and physical infrastructure of a state. He spoke of the accomplishments of his “bottom-up” strategy—the West Bank’s 7 percent growth rate and the more than 1,000 development projects completed under his administration. He alluded to the American-sponsored training for the Palestinian police and security forces that have helped stem terror and establish Palestinian law and order in West Bank towns long overrun by gangs and corruption.

Isabel Maxwell, an activist and philanthropist who has devoted enormous time and energy to understanding the dual narratives that have shaped the Israel-Palestinian struggle, said that Ramallah and parts of the West Bank were being transformed under Fayyad’s administration. Recently, for instance, Bashar Masri, a Palestinian developer, broke ground on Rawabi, a new community just north of Bir Zeit that’s designed to accommodate 750,000 Palestinians. New business ventures were springing up throughout Ramallah, she said. For the first time, the West Bank has a Yellow Pages.

Fayyad predicted that Palestinians would be more than ready for statehood by 2011, within two years. But Palestinians also had to believe that the occupation was ending and that the political, or “top-down” peace talks would ultimately deliver the two-state solution that both the Palestine Authority and Israel have endorsed. Yet the political track has failed to keep pace with bottom-up nation-building, he said, despite U.S envoy George Mitchell’s repeated trips here, and the efforts by Britain, France, and others to revive the negotiations.

The most obvious problem with imagining a true two-state solution of the kind that Fayyad expects is Gaza, mired in its misery under militant Islamic rule. Hamas refuses to accept a two-state solution or any Jewish presence in what it refers to as historic Palestine. Fayyad paid the requisite lip-service to ending the “separation” between the Palestine Authority and Iranian-supported Hamas, which needed less than five hours to evict its Fatah rivals from Gaza in 2007. But Hamas and Fatah are unlikely to reconcile anytime soon. Nor is Bibi, who is scheduled to close the conference Wednesday night, likely to yield to the Obama administration’s demands that Israel stop expanding settlements.

The Obama adminstration’s anger over Netanyahu’s recalcitrant behavior has prompted Washington to stage something of a no-show at the conference. While a deputy assistant secretary of defense is participating in several panels, the White House did not send its usual suspects here. Vice President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, veteran diplomat Dennis Ross, and other senior officials involved in setting Middle East policy were all invited, along with others, but none accepted. Several leaders of American Jewish groups insisted on Tuesday that relations between Israel and the United States are perfectly fine, but the strains between the two allies seemed all too evident.

Iran’s Sejil-2 surface-to-surface missile, prior to its test-firing on May 20, 2009.
CREDIT: FARS/AFP/Getty Images

February 1, 10:55 p.m. ET: The Herzliya Conference is not for the faint-hearted or weak of tongue. From 8:30 in the morning to 11 at night, Israeli and foreign participants at this national-security marathon talk, question, opine, challenge, decry, quip, assert, and rant. And, of course, complain: about the failing peace process, the strains in the U.S.-Israeli partnership, and Israel’s frustrations with the Arabs, radical Islamists, and their “moderate” Arab alternatives—if, as opposition leader and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni observed, one can use that term to describe people who “chop off the hands of thieves.”

On buses, over sack lunches, and in corridors, Israelis and their guests at this prestigious gathering engage in non-stop gab. But near the end of the second day of this four-day conference, several participants began to notice as Berel Rodal, a former Canadian defense official and an entrepreneur, astutely noticed, much of the talk was about not talking.

The elephant in all of the rooms at Herzliya is Iran. Yes, there is endless talk about the challenge that a nuclearized, militant Iran will pose not only to Israel but also to the stability of the region and the world. There is talk about what the United States might, or should, or is likely to do, and there is worry about what Obama is unlikely to do.

But there is precious little discussion about Israel’s actual strategic thinking and plans. Uzi Arad, the prime minster’s national security adviser, explained in Sunday night’s opening speech the reasons for Israeli officials’ uncharacteristic opaqueness. “More is happening than meets the eye,” said Arad, a man with backgrounds in both scholarship and the Mossad, who not incidentally was the founder of the Herzliya Conference a decade ago.

Arad stressed the need for patience, a posture not always associated with a man who has never been known for a shy, retiring style. Talk is sometimes cheap, he suggested. Not talking about things should not be interpreted to mean that nothing was happening on the Iranian front. Not talking did not mean that there was nothing to talk about. When he was not talking, he continued, we could assume that there might be things happening that he could not and would not talk about. “And that’s all I want to say about that,” he concluded.

Known for his acute analyses and blunt talk, Arad stressed the need for “prudence” and to avoid “noise and threats.”

There has been no talk by officials at Herzliya about Israel’s “red lines”—the points that Iran will reach in its nuclear program at which Israel may feel compelled to take military action. What constitutes a strategic threat to Israel, participants wondered. Would Iran’s possession of enough low-enriched uranium (which can be enriched to bomb levels within six months) be considered a red line? If so, that line has probably been crossed. Must Iran actually test a device to be considered a strategic threat to Israel? What will Israel do if Iran adopts the “Japanese model”—acquires the capability and material to build a bomb at any point, but refrains from actually building a weapon or testing one? Would Israel act without U.S. assistance or approval? Does it have the ability to destroy enough of Iran’s nuclear facilities to justify military action—and the political will and military ability to withstand Iranian retaliation? How would action absent American blessing affect the fate of Israel’s sometimes-tense relationship with Washington, the country’s most important strategic partner?

Israel’s relationship with Washington can still be talked about. Indeed, the morning’s keynote panel was entitled “U.S.-Israeli Relations: Still Special?” The panelists agreed that the ties between the two states and U.S. support for Israel remain strong, despite Israel’s refusal to yield to President Barack Obama’s demand that it suspend expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Tzipi Livni argued that the relationship remained crucial, despite diplomatic strains. Pursuing peace with the Palestinians and challenging militant Iran were not favors Israel did for Washington, she asserted, but in both countries’ strategic interests.

There is a discouraging consensus that the peace process with the Palestinians is going nowhere, the result, many participants argued, of the disarray within Palestinian ranks, the domination of Gaza, or “Hamastan,” as one Israeli participant called it, by militant Islamic Hamas, and a weak Palestinian leadership on the West Bank, which more conservative Israelis, and all Israeli officials, continue to call by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria. Only Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt now at Princeton, warned that it was unreasonable and self-defeating for Israel to insist that the Palestinians come to the negotiating table to discuss the fate of land that Israel continued to seize.

Tuesday’s schedule features very little talk about the irksome Palestinians and much more talk about Israel’s energy requirements and oil addition, its Jewish identity and heritage, the treatment of its elderly, and the quest for “effective governance.”

But the issue of what to do about Iran is likely to continue to dominate the corridor chatter, if not official speeches.

One Israeli official warned me not to expect too much enlightenment on the questions that are most likely to keep conference participants at Herzliya up at night. “Those who are talking don’t know,” he explained. “And those who know aren’t talking.”

Dagan, at left, celebrating his appointment as Mossad chief with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and outgoing Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy on October 30, 2002.
CREDIT: Yaakov Saar/GPO/Getty Images

Feburary 1, 1:00 p.m. ET: For the tenth year in a row, anyone who is anyone in Israel can be found in this Tel Aviv suburb by the sea for the annual Herzliya Conference, the theme of which this year is the “Balance of Israel’s National Security.” The three-day conference features Israel’s political and intellectual movers and shakers—from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the country’s irrepressibly energetic octogenarian president, Shimon Peres, from Defense Minister Ehud Barak to his fading political rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, from academic superstars like the Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling to American billionaire real estate magnate and publisher Mort Zuckerman.

As heavy-duty keynote speakers from around the world address the roughly 800 invitees in the Herzliya Center’s vast auditorium and panelists debate the state of Israel’s soul and its political and economic fortunes at invitation-only breakout sessions in classrooms, participants conduct the conference’s real business—the informal schmoozing and exchanges of embossed business cards—over coffee and in the corridors.

But this year, all of Israel is focused on a man who isn’t here. The man who is so vital to Israel’s security never comes to this prestigious event, even though his predecessors, acolytes, associates, and protégés are everywhere at this gathering: Meir Dagan hates small talk, but his name this week is on all of Israel’s lips.

Meir Dagan is the head of the Mossad, Israel’s secret security service, which struck again in January in Dubai with devastating precision in a raid whose details are only now dribbling out past Israel’s press censors. Israel, as is its custom, has neither confirmed nor denied a role in the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas operative and founder of the group’s military wing, in a hotel room near Dubai’s international airport on January 20. But his family and Hamas are blaming Israel for Mabhouh’s demise.

Smadar Perry, the Arab-affairs correspondent for Yedioth Ahronoth, revealed more details of the astonishing operation in an article today as the participants gathered for Herzliya’s opening ceremony.

The strike was vintage Mossad—precise, without fingerprints, and deniable, the kind of operation in which Dagan has specialized since becoming chief of the spy agency seven years ago.

According to the newspaper, al-Mabhouh was in Dubai for Hamas to arrange a shipment of arms from Iran, having entered under a false name with a phony passport. There are varying accounts of precisely what happened in al-Mabhouh’s room at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, where his body was discovered by hotel staff. But somehow, four Mossad agents, having entered Dubai with false passports, gained entry to his room, although Al-Mahbouh, no stranger to assassination attempts, had supposedly taken the precaution of propping a huge arm chair against his hotel door to prevent unauthorized entry. The paper reported that he was electrocuted by an unknown device and then strangled. The agents left a “Do not Disturb” sign on his door to ensure that the body would not be discovered for several hours, to give themselves sufficient time for a clean getaway.

Al-Mahbouh had been on Israel’s hit list for years. On the run since 1989, when he helped kidnap and kill two Israeli soldiers on leave, he and eventually his family moved to Damascus, where Hamas’ more radical wing under Khaled Mishal is based. According to The Times of London, al-Mabhouh traveled to Dubai on January 18 on an Emirates flight from Damascus using a false passport. Upon his arrival in Dubai, he was followed by two men who were described by local police as “Europeans traveling on European passports.” Yedioth Ahronoth reported yesterday that one member of the team was a woman.

Dubai police chief Dhafi Khalfan told the Agence France-Presse on Sunday that the apparent operation to kill the Hamas kingpin was perpetrated by “seven or more people holding passports from different European countries” and that the police are currently in contact with the countries in question to figure out who the passport-holders are.

The killing of al-Mahbouh is the latest in a string of assassinations and operations that are commonly believed to be part of the campaign to stop the flow of arms and other contraband to Gaza since Hamas seized control of the Fatah-led government there in June 2007. While questions have been raised internationally about the extent of arms shipments from Iran to Gaza, weapons apparently destined for Gaza have been captured at sea. In a recent interview on Hamas’ English-language website, movement official Dr. Khalil al-Hayah praised Iranian support for Hamas and did not deny that this support included weapons. “Iran supports us financially, politically and morally,” he said, “and stands beside the Palestinian people and his [sic] resistance, without going into unimportant details.”

In December, two Hamas officials were killed in a mysterious blast in Beirut. And last year, Sudan, which is allied with Iran and openly hosts Hamas, accused Israel of attacking a convoy in a remote mountainous region in the northeastern part of the country. The Associated Press and other media reports said the strikes were aimed at convoys allegedly filled with weapons bound for Gaza.

Israel has also been linked to the disappearance of Iranian nuclear officials, though it is unclear whether they were killed or have defected to the West. And most famously, the Mossad has been accused of having assassinated Imad Mughnieh, the senior Hezbollah official responsible for the bombing of the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut in 1983, soon after he attended a gathering at the home of the Iranian cultural attaché in Damascus.

Dagan, a 65-year-old military officer who was born in Novosibirsk, Siberia, and emigrated to Israel as a young child, does not give interviews and is known to despise the media. It goes without saying that he would not be comfortable or happy at the Herzliya conference, where he is everyone’s favorite subject of conversation.

And somewhere nearby, away from the reporters and politicians, a small group of men and women who work for Israel’s top spy may be gathering to celebrate their latest accomplishment with a glass of champagne.

Judith Miller is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose writings focus on the Middle East and counterterrorism. As an investigative reporter for The New York Times, she was part of a small team that earned a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on global terrorism. Her book God Has Ninety-Nine Names explored the spread of Islamic extremism in ten Middle Eastern countries, including Israel and Iran.