“From a report in today’s Independent: Mossad boss heads for exit after Dubai murder fallout
Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, could step down in three months after the country’s Prime Minister refused to extend his term, a television channel has claimed.
The unconfirmed reports will prompt speculation that Mr Dagan, 65, is being ousted over a botched operation in January to kill a Hamas operative in Dubai that led to a diplomatic backlash from some of Israel’s closest allies.
Meir Dagan, Mossad boss. Employed to 'notch' murders, not to botch them
This is sad news indeed. One hates to hear of anyone losing their job, especially so close to retirement age.
Apparently the Israeli leadership”s concern was not that Dagan orchestrated murders. That was his job. The problem was he botched it.
The Dubai murder-debacle, which led to a souring of relations even with the usually supine Irish, British and Australian Governments, was ‘the final straw’.
Even so, the story reports that Dagan wasn’t a total failure:
Under his watch, Mossad is believed to have notched up a series of hits, including the assassinations of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus and Brigadier General Mohammed Suleiman, a senior figure in Syrian intelligence.
“Notched up a series of hits”?!
The biggest problem illustrated by this story, to my mind, is cynicism itself. It’s bad enough that utter maniacs are at the helm of a nuclear-armed, psychopathic Apartheid-type State. But what has happened to western journalism, and indeed to the entire western Enlightenment tradition, when the murderous goings-on of these people are reported – and eventually come to be regarded – as normal?
To be fair, The Independent is by no means the worst offender here. It’s one of the more enlightened western mainstream newspapers.
For shameless, in-your-face pro-Zionist/terrorist bias, it’s hard to beat the New York Times, whose reporter Deborah Solomon recently interviewed Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni.
Tzipi Livni, daughter of romantic terrorists
Asked about her parents, Livni was frank: “Both of them were in the Irgun,” Livni said. “They were freedom fighters, and they met while boarding a British train. When the British Mandate was here, they robbed a train to get the money in order to buy weapons.”
To this interesting admission that her interviewee was the daughter of anti-British terrorists, Solomon responded “It was a more romantic era”.
At least two national leaders have a clue. Meeting in Caracas, Presidents Chavez of Venezuela and President Assad of Syria discussed Israel:
Someday the genocidal state of Israel will be put in its place, in the proper place and hopefully a real democratic state will be born,” Mr Chavez said…. Mr Assad called Israel a state “based on crime, slaughter.”
