Opinion A gift for Joe Biden
The Dubai hit is a sidelight in the Israel-Palestine saga....
Ben Caspit in Maariv used the phrase that was picked up by the global media to sum up the Mossads alleged Dubai hit: a tactical operational success,a strategic failure. Almost two months since it happened,and nearly a month since the first outcry,it may seem now that this gruesome murder too will be buried in the annals of covert espionage operations.
So its imperative to understand that Dubai casts a faint and a dark shadow. It was feared to immediately impact the resumption of peace talks,suspended since Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. However,US Vice President Joe Bidens trip to Israel has followed the script: he reaffirmed US support for Israel,expressed high hopes for the indirect proximity talks,condemned Israels decision to build homes in East Jerusalem. Israel has desired direct talks,even as Mahmoud Abbas categorically declared that they will not happen as long as the near-absent mutual trust is continuously undermined.
The timing of Israels announcement of the building plans 112 homes in the West Bank,which it claims were sanctioned before Binyamin Netanyahu grudgingly accepted a 10-month settlement freeze last November; and 1600 in East Jerusalem,which Israel had kept out of the freeze zone to coincide with Bidens trip (the highest-level so far from the Obama administration) has,expectedly,frustrated the vice president,who was meant to break the ice. The Obama coldness felt by leaders across Europe and Asia has a near-zero temperature in a country that feels it no longer has a blind,all-weather friend in Washington.
The background to the Biden visit is starker than the actual hopelessness of the proximity talks. It is a prospective Israeli strike on Iran. The building announcements add to the atmospheric noxiousness. What Netanyahu is suspected to be doing is applying the oldest trick in his book compelling a US administration in love with big ideas to fall back on Americas old,unquestioned support for Israel. Meanwhile,Palestinians are clashing with the Israeli police in East Jerusalem,there are fears of a third intifada,and Israel is staring at a possibly violent confrontation with its own rightwing lunatic fringe.
The Dubai hit isolated in itself casts its fainter,and shorter,shadow over all this; short because its impact on regional politics will not last long. Faint because,despite the substantial digital trail,all the evidence to implicate the Mossad is,technically,circumstantial. Precedent and past record is no proof. And Israel has a policy of ambiguity on such operations,never owning up,never denying. As the 27th suspect was identified by Interpol on Tuesday another
Australian-Israeli Israeli incredulity rose: could the Mossad really have been so stupid as to not even deactivate the CCTV cameras,or take the Dubai police for kindergarten cops? Why steal the identities of so many Israelis with dual nationalities? Why employ 27 (and possibly more) agents when the Mossad has an operational prescription of not sparing two agents where one suffices (Never mind the big teams used after the Munich massacre.)? And why did Dubais heroic police chief suddenly disappear last week (apparently on pilgrimage to Mecca)?
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh,the Hamas operative killed on January 20,was in Dubai to negotiate a possible arms deal with Tehran a deal that could alter the tactical balance in Gaza. Two (subsequently three) arrested Palestinians,connected with the hit,were,as per Hamas claims,members of the Palestinian Authoritys security apparatus in Gaza,who had fled after the Hamas takeover in 2007. Was it then a Fatah-Mossad collaboration? Was it part of a larger strategy to monitor Iranian business interests that use Dubais banking system to help Tehran circumvent the sanctions? Iran,right across the Persian Gulf,is Israels foremost concern; and an Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran a week before
the Dubai hit.
The Dubai business has become too complicated to separate the strands and ascertain responsibility. But the muck will stay at Israels door even if its forgiven by allies whose passport regimes were violated,even if its no lonelier than it already was. Yet Netanyahus priorities are clearly elsewhere. He believes the political dynamic for Israel can be changed by cornering the US through intransigence,and doing nothing to help the talks.
Thus,Dubais impact on politics will be short and shallow. Its darker,and longer,shadow however falls on the practical and ethical future of covert operations. Covert operations will not end hereafter; theyll change. But Mossads operability and regional stations stand compromised. Meir Dagan,Mossads current chief,is being lampooned as the national blunderer.
The Dubai hit will likely remain a ripping spy yarn rather than a bloody scandal,unless the Dubai police manage to end the trail one way or the other. Meanwhile,Israelis and Palestinians will keep walking,without displacement,as they always have. If indirect proximity talks,against the backdrop of simmering violence,are to be construed as progress after a decade and a half of failed direct talks,Dubai is politically a drop of water,not the ocean.
sudeep.paul@expressindia.com
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