Say what?

Meanwhile, I’d say Egyptian TV host Sheik Khaled Abdallah should try to get to the bottom of who infiltrated his forehead.

Update: Don’t worry, Egyptian MP Mustafa Bakri knows who to blame!

Granted, the captions are clumsy, but you get the drift.

But guess who thinks this is not only not funny, but actually racist.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/01/17/popular-culture-exposes-racism-that-enables-israeli-war-fever/

There’s always a fine line between political parody and racism.  It’s often hard to say where one bleeds into another.  But the humor of this commercial exposes the moral anaesthesia Israelis undergo, which allows them to be isolated from the impact of the acts of their military and intelligence forces in the region.  Instead of a conscious act of sabotage, a bumbling Israeli intelligence agent clicks a button on a tablet application and–Oops!–there goes another Iranian nuclear facility.  More Keystone Cops than Mossad cloak and dagger.

At the conclusion, another Israeli swats and kills an insect pest called a Khomeini.  The irony of the term and racial hostility inherent in it is self-evident.  Yet another marker for the anti-Muslim hate afflicting contemporary Israel.  Yes, a nation has to laugh at itself especially in times of tension.  But laughter of the sort in this commercial doesn’t encourage thought or introspection.  It doesn’t probe reality.  It allows Israelis to sink back in their economic largess, to luxuriate in the consumer options (like HOT cable service) available to them, while the harmless bumblers of the Mossad go around blowing up Iranian nuclear plants almost by accident.

It all ends with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink that would be fitting for a Monty Python routine, except the Pythons would’ve been savaging cultural norms instead of laughing about them.  Israelis, unfortunately, don’t have that distance from the crimes done in their name.

Silverstein’s claims of racism are ridiculous, as the majority of the commenters to his post point out. I won’t republish the entire thread here, but suffice to say, Silverstein is ripped a new one.

If you read the comments, you’ll notice:

1. Silverstein displays his utter ignorance of Israeli culture

2. Silverstein cannot respond to any dissent without hurling insults

3. Silverstein cannot hide is utter contempt for Israelis

And if you are wondering when I’ll stop posting about this nasty piece of work, the answer is when the Israeli and international media stop citing him as a credible source for anything.

This time, Perry is reporting that Mossad agents posed as CIA agents to recruit Jundallah terrorists to carry out missions in Iran. According to Perry, this happened between 2007 and 2009, the Bush administration was furious about it – but did nothing – and Obama put a stop to it when he took office in 2009…The sources for the story are said to be unnamed, retired CIA officers, plus former Centcom chief Joe Hoar. Hoar is a vehement opponent of Israel (and of American involvement in Iraq, by the way), who cannot even acknowledge that George Marshall opposed recognition of the Jewish state out of anti-Semitism. Make sure you read that entire last link for the context.

Amir Oren of Ha’aretz reported that a senior Israeli government official called the Perry allegations “absolute nonsense,” and characterized Perry as “openly supporting the Arab cause.” This last statement caused full time anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein to get his panties in a knot.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/01/14/israeli-intelligence-source-denies-jundallah-false-flag-story/

But what especially irks me about Oren’s report is that he adds a dig against Perry’s credibility that is gratuitous and deeply insulting.  Interestingly, the insult is only in the Hebrew version (wonder why hmm?) and not the English.  Dimi Reider, in his 972 report notes that Oren calls Perry, an “avowed supporter of the Arab cause.”  His Wikipedia article notes that Perry was an “unofficial” advisor to the PLO until 2004.  How does this fact impeach his reporting on the false flag story?  Because he had some informal involvement with the PLO ending eight years ago, that means he has it in for the Mossad on this story?  C’mon.  That’s bush league stuff.  But unfortunately, this is what Israeli intelligence people and their willing collaborators in the media stoop to.  And I say this as someone who’s admired all of Oren’s previous reporting.

Actually, there is nothing in Perry’s story that would give you the impression he was a pro-Arab partisan (and by the way Mossad source and Mr. Oren, Iranians aren’t Arab, but that’s beside the point).  It is a very carefully reported story that contains no animus whatsoever against Israel, nor any gratuitous partisan statements on Iran’s behalf.

While the story itself is not framed in a way that betrays Perry’s anti-Israel proclivities, one need not look past his Twitter feed to see he contains a great deal of animus against Israel.

Notice his retweeting of Ali Abunimah, the vehemently anti-Israel founder of Electronic Intifada, and his characterizing as tiresome this article which points out Hamas terrorism and lack of acceptance of Israel’s very existence.

In addition, I’ve located this video of Perry downplaying the violence of Hamas and Hizballah, and coming out in favor of dialog with them, as well as with Iran, Syria and the Moslem Brotherhood.

He’s also published a book called Talking To Terrorists.

So contrary to Silverstein’s claims, Mark Perry does seem to have animus against Israel and clearly opposes operations action against Iran. This background is relevant in evaluating his objectivity and the merits of his article.

Update: Commentary Magazine adds the following:

The article’s sourcing is problematic and should also raise red flags. Perry relies on two current intelligence officers, only one of whom has seen the memo alleging Israeli malfeasance. One officer—presumably the same who saw the memo and perhaps also wrote it—describes Bush’s reaction, and so presumably was a briefer for the White House. Should Gen. David Petraeus, director of Central Intelligence, wish to identify that leaker, he could do so easily. In addition, Perry talks to four retired intelligence officials, whose names and positions he also cloaks in anonymity. Allowing these officials a wall of anonymity from behind which to throw mud is problematic as intelligence officials have admitted leaks to advance personal political agendas.

At the very least, Foreign Policy should have printed when the retirees left the service. Retired Defense Intelligence Agency officer W. Patrick Lang​, whose animus toward Israel is pronounced, for example, made a cottage industry during the Iraq war of commenting about matters following his retirement. He neither disclosed his role as a registered Foreign Agent nor the fact that he lacked direct knowledge of much for which he purported to be a source.

Update: Still on topic: here’s a recent commercial  for a cable/tablet package with Israel’s HOT cable channel. It’s not translated, but you can get the jist of it.

But for those who could not make head nor tail of that, my friend Dave Bender has provided this summary:

Four Israeli guys hop over to Isfahan, Iran to meet up with the local Mossad agent, who lays out the deal’s benefits.
Quotes:
On beach: “…God only knows where you can get kosher food here…”
On beach: Dabs on suntan lotion, and defensively says: “What?!? You have any idea how much radiation there is here?…”
One tries operate an app on the tablet, and accidentally blows up the nuke factory in the background, and defensively says… “What?!? – just another ‘mysterious explosion in Iran.’”

"Come out, come out little Dickie."

And so another Iranian Nuclear scientist has an unfortunate exploding car problem in Tehran and, right on time, Richard Doucheblogger™ Silverstein cries out his usual “Mossad did it”. Immediately this is picked up and linked to by a host of media, thankful that some crank has put into words what they’re all thinking but can’t say till they have any source to say it for them.

I checked with my inside source how credible Dickie is on this and this is the verbatim reply I got:

based on my experience with Israeli intelligence agencies and mfa, they do not use idiots like silverstein. they would first to turn to wsj, nyt or a large british publication

So there you have it. It may be The Mossad, it may not, but you didn’t learn anything from Doucheblogger™ that you couldn’t have pulled out of your own left nostril.

And remember, it used to be Lumber Jacking was the most dangerous job in the world. This is not the case any more.

Aussie Dave adds: Media outlets quoting Silverstein include Jerusalem Post,  Ynet (Dudi Cohen again), Arutz Sheva and Maariv. Not to mention the Iranian Fars News agency, who had this pearl:

“My own confidential Israeli source confirms today’s murder was the work of the Mossad and MKO, as have been a number of previous operations I’ve reported here,” Richard Silverstein, a senior Jewish American journalist, said in his weblog named Tikun Olam.

They’ll lay up baskets, lay your women, and execute their well laid plans..before reporting back to Mossad headquarters!

Hezbollah’s mouthpiece Al-Manar TV aired a report criticizing Lebanese authorities for allowing eight foreign basketball players who had previously played in Israel to play for teams in Lebanon. One of the players, Sam Hoskin, plays for Lebanon’s national team. Hoskin, an American, previously played for Israeli basketball club Hapoel Galil-Elyon.

Abd el-Malek Sachriya, who heads an organization promoting legislation aimed at boycotting Israel, told Al-Manar’s website that Lebanese authorities are responsible for the “scandal” in which Hoskin was allowed to become a citizen of the Arab country.

He said Lebanon was “half-asleep” and wondered “how can it be that eight players who have played in the Zionist entity come to play in Lebanon – and one of them is even granted citizenship – without anyone knowing who they really are?”

Sachriya said he would meet the Lebanese sports minister next week to discuss the matter. “Any player who entered the Zionist entity and came to Lebanon must be expelled immediately,” he said.

“Players who came from Israel may have been recruited by Mossad – this is a danger to national security,” Sachriya continued. “As we know, the enemy uses all the means at its disposal to achieve its goals and harm the Lebanese resistance.”

Among the players mentioned in the report were ex-Macabbi Tel Aviv forward Rodney Buford; Alpha Bangoura, who played for Givat Shmuel; former Ramat Hasharon player Derek Trevor; John Thomas (what a great name for a basketballer – Aussie Dave) and Tony Dawson, who was Israel’s leading scorer during the 1991-92 season when he played for Betar Tel Aviv.

Dickie Sliverstein adds: Thanks for beating me to my post, you moral pygmy.

Exactly 45 years ago Cpt. Munir Redfa, an Iraqi pilot, defected to Israel with the successful Mossad operation – Operation Diamond in 1966. He arrived in Israel on his MiG-21 aircraft after four years of cooperation with Mossad agents and after making the decision to leave Iraq with his family.

“Our goal was to learn about our enemy, understand our threats and acquire a MiG-21 aircraft,” explained Col. Daniel Shapira Chief IAF Test Pilot at the time. Immediately after receiving the plane, Col. Shapira was required to examine it, learn about it and use it in training as soon as possible.

“While I was learning from Cpt. Redfa, we’ve become true friends,” said Col. Shapira. “He was an incredible person: persistent, intelligent and determined. He never for a second regretted his decision to come here.”

Upon leaving Iraqi territory, Cpt. Redfa was confronted by Iraqi planes who attempted an attack to no avail. “He crossed the designate point on the Dead Sea and successfully reached Hatzor where he safely landed with his family,” explained Col. Shapira.

“Cpt. Redfa told me that his main motive for leaving Iraq was that he feared for his life and the lives of his family while living there,” said Col. Shapira.

Other than Cpt. Munir Redfa, two other pilots defected to Israel. In January 1964 Cpt. Mahmud Abbas Halimi of the Egyptian air force, followed by Cpt. Radfa two years later. In 1989, Maj. Bassam Adal a Syrian pilot arrived in Israel as well and was granted an alternative identity.

Update: More on the defection here.

In 1966 Redfa was a 32-year-old pilot in the Iraqi air force. He was frustrated that his Christian background was blocking prospects of promotion and outraged that he had been ordered to attack Iraqi Kurds. He was beginning to doubt whether he had any future in Iraq.

Joseph Shamash, one of Israel’s top agents in Baghdad, befriended Redfa and his wife Betty and persuaded them to join him on a Greek island holiday during which they were introduced to Liron. They knew him only as Josh.

“Josh can help you to leave Iraq,” Shamash whispered to Redfa.

“When Munir heard what we wanted – to fly his MiG from Iraq to Israel – he almost fainted,” said Liron. “‘My MiG? To Israel? Are you guys out of your minds?’” He pointed out that his tanks carried insufficient fuel to reach Israel and that he would be shot down as soon as he tried to head for the border.

Speaking as a fellow pilot, Liron pulled out a map and showed Redfa that his plan could work. “Finally Munir was convinced,” Liron said, “but by the morning he’d got cold feet.”

Urgent action was required. Mossad consulted Yitzhak Rabin, the army’s chief of staff and future prime minister, who ordered: “Bring him to Israel. Show him where he’ll land and let him fly in one of our jets.”

Redfa was given an Israeli passport in the name of Moshe Miz-rahi and touched down with Liron in Tel Aviv, where he was taken to the airfield where he would land the MiG. Before he left Israel, Redfa asked Liron not to tell his wife anything about the plan. “I’ll prepare the ground,” he promised. But he did not – and it almost derailed the operation.

Back in Baghdad, Redfa was assigned to a long-haul flight and he convinced his ground staff to add an extra fuel tank to his MiG.

Meanwhile, the Israelis arranged for Redfa’s entire family to leave Iraq for their summer holiday. The last to leave were Betty and their two children, aged three and five, who flew to Paris.

When Liron met her there ina Mossad safe house and told her they were about to fly to Israel, she had hysterics. “Forget it!” she screamed. “Israel? Are you mad? And who are you anyway? I’m going straight to the Iraqi embassy.”

“Only then did I realise Munir hadn’t said her a word to her about going to Israel,” said Liron.

Eventually he calmed Betty down, persuaded her not to expose the plot to the authorities, gave her an Israeli passport and got her onto a flight to Tel Aviv. Several hours after they landed, Redfa and his MiG21, escorted by an Israeli Mirage, landed at the airbase.

With Redfa’s help, the Israelis immediately began to unlock the secrets of the Russian plane. Their pilots tested it to its limits. They fought mock dogfights with their Mirages and learnt the tactics needed to beat it.

After the 1967 war, Redfa and his family left Israel. Betty had told her husband that living with the enemy was out of the question. Mossad arranged for them to adopt new identities – as the proprietors of a petrol station in the West.

The MiG was lent to the US, which tested it in the Nevada desert, and it helped develop a new generation of American fighters. In return, for the first time, the US began to supply Israel with modern jets. Redfa died of a heart attack in 1998.

The Telegraph has an account of a daring Mossad raid in Britain that led to the IAF destroying a Syrian plutonium reactor in 2007.

Undercover agents tracked a Syrian official carrying nuclear secrets to London where they broke into his hotel room and stole the plans as part of a daring operation on foreign soil by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, it has been claimed.
 
The first day of the official’s trip was apparently devoted to a series of meetings at the Syrian embassy in Belgrave Square

The original plan was apparently to assassinate the official and Israel only averted what would have been a huge diplomatic rift with Britain, when they decided the target was more valuable alive than dead.

The operation involved at least 10 undercover agents on the streets of Britain and led directly to a controversial bombing raid into Syrian territory that destroyed a nuclear reactor that was under construction.

It closely mirrored the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas arms trader, who was killed in his hotel room in Dubai last year using agents disguised as tennis players.

The operation began when Israeli intelligence picked up an online booking for a senior Syrian nuclear official at a hotel in Kensington, west London, in late 2006, according to the Israeli authors of the book Israel vs Iran: the Shadow War.

Mossad then dispatched three undercover teams to Britain including a team of “spotters” who were sent to Heathrow airport to identify the official as he flew in from Damascus under a false name. A second team booked into his hotel, while a third monitored his movements and any visitors.

The agents included members of the Kidon [Spear] division, Mossad’s hit squad, and the Neviot [Springs] division, which specialises in breaking into houses, embassies and hotel rooms to install bugging devices.

The first day of the official’s trip was apparently devoted to a series of meetings at the Syrian embassy in Belgrave Square but the following day he went shopping before his return to the airport.

The Kidon team followed him closely from shop to shop while the Neviot agents broke into his room and found his laptop. A computer expert took 15 minutes to download the hard drive and install trojan software that allowed Israel to monitor every keystroke he made.

When the computer material was examined at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, officials found photographs and blueprints for a plutonium reactor at Al Kibar near Deir el-Zor, a remote desert town 80 miles from Syria’s border with Iraq.

According to one source quoted in the book, the discovery saved the life of the official, who would otherwise have been killed in Britain, causing a major diplomatic incident.

“His computer and its contents turned out to be his life insurance. If it weren’t for that, he wouldn’t have left Europe alive,” the security official boasted.

In August 2007 Israel apparently sent a special forces team into Syria to collect soil samples near the reactor, then at around 1am on September 5 2007 Israeli fighter bombers attacked the facility in a raid into Syrian airspace that destroyed the plant.

I can’t confirm or deny that this is what went down. But it sure sounds good to me.

But that’s not the funny part.

Former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Riza Asghari has been detained in Israel since his abduction by the Mossad in 2006, sources told Ma’an.

The sources said Israeli authorities had imposed a gag order on the country’s media forbidding them from reporting details of the case.

Iranian officials and Asghari’s family have accused Israel’s Mossad of abducting the former cabinet minister, who disappeared during a visit to Turkey in December 2006.

Shortly after Asghari’s disappearance, a senior US official told The Washington Post that the Iranian had defected and was providing Western intelligence services with information on links between Hezbollah and Iran.

In March 2009, a former German Defense Ministry official also said Asghari had defected, and that he was providing information on Iran’s nuclear program.

Iranian news sites reported in November 2009 that Asghari was being held in an Israeli prison. At the time, Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

I am a journalist

Journalist Richard Silverstein reported in December 2010 that Asghari was found dead in his cell in Israel’s Ayalon prison.

Silverstein cited reports by the Israeli news site Ynet and the Israeli daily Haaretz that a security prisoner had committed suicide while in solitary confinement in Ayalon prison. Ynet cited a gag order in its report, and the news was later removed from the site.

A source close to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak revealed that the deceased prisoner was Asghari, Silverstein said.

Now he’s a journalist? Because his LinkedIn profile would suggest he is now a blogger, and his only “real job” was as a “major gifts officer.”

And still on the subject of Silverstein, he’s still schilling for Hamas.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/05/07/hamas-meshal-offers-new-pragmatism/

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Hamas’ Khaled Meshal offered a newly pragmatic, consensus-driven Hamas approach to its Fatah collaborators and to Israel.  Of course, the proof is in the pudding in these situations and we’ve seen Hamas’ pragmatism wax and wane with the political winds.  But given the overall mood-music in the Arab world and the upcoming campaign for Palestinian statehood at the General Assembly in September, Hamas’ initiative appears promising to say the least.  As others have noted, I’m guessing that Hamas’ increasingly unstable home in Damascus is also forcing it to look outward for friends and allies in places (Ramallah, Washington, Cairo, Brussels) it hadn’t considered.

—-

It’s important to point out that for Hamas (and unlike Fatah), violent resistance and non-violent resistance are strategies and not ends in themselves.  Meshal is clearly saying that for now, it’s most promising for us to turn away from violence, since that is most likely to secure our goals for Palestinian statehood.  But he’s also clearly saying that if non-violence and this current round of peacemaking and nation-building fails, that the movement could very well turn back to violence.

Of course, this will make Bibi and the pro-Israelists howl.  They’ll wag their fingers saying: “You see.  We told you you can’t trust them.  They’re only turning to non-violence out of cynical motives and they’ll return to violence the first chance they get.”  This of course gets things all wrong.  The point is that if non violence gets them where they want to be, then there will be no need for violence.

What Meshal is really saying is that if Fatah honors its commitments, there are free and fair elections, and the General Assembly approves a Palestinian state, then Hamas will have no reason to turn to violence.  To me, this is a patently self-evident pragmatic approach.  Even former Mossad directors like Ephraim Halevy understand it too.  But not the Bibistas.

—-

Hamas is currently showing pragmatic realism.  Bibi is showing the same old losing cards. And Obama’s showing nothing.  Where are you, Mr. President?  Stop basking in the glow of being Osama-killer and get down to brass tacks.  Show some leadership.  If he allows the mid-term elections to dictate the same-old, same-old approach to Hamas for fear of appearing soft on terror and hostile to a Likudist Israeli government, he’ll have lost yet another opportunity to play a leadership role in making peace.

“The network of spies and terrorists linked to … Mossad was destroyed,” state television quoted a statement issued by the intelligence ministry as saying. “The network was behind the assassination of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi.”

A remote-controlled bomb killed the Tehran University scientist in Tehran on January 12 last year. Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the killing.

Washington has denied charges of involvement as “absurd”.

The statement said Israel had “used some European and non-European countries as well as some neighboring countries to lead the assassination,” without giving further details.

“We uncovered important and sensitive information and espionage teams and Mossad operations, and as a result we dealt a major blow to the Zionist regime’s intelligence and security organizations.”

I can confirm it is true. And in an Israellycool exclusive, I present a photo of the captured spies.

In other Mossad spy-related news, one of our boys was thankfully released.

Now, thanks to Firas Press, we have more details.

[warning: Dodgy-at-times auto-translation]

Media said that the Saudi security forces have arrested an Israeli eagle is likely to be an agent for the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, had been spying after flying in Saudi airspace, before injury forced him to get off near the home of a Saudi sheik.

And managed some of the Saudi citizens in the region of Hail “arrested” on the Eagle spy after falling from a house near forced a Senate in the region.

Saudi authorities have revealed that the Israeli eagle was carrying under his wings and legs of some metal bracelets, and a commentator on his body, in addition to the file number in the offices of the Mossad. 

The spy is unveiled after the bird that chased Saudiyon citizens and were able to catch because he was suffering from an injury, as well as for devices that were weighing metal wings, which require specialized tarmac by up to 30 meters.

And according to the newspaper “Maariv” Israel, have been found in the body of the eagle on the transmitter “LG. Me. S “and also found a bracelet on the books by the University of Tel Aviv.

Have been handed the bird to Saudi security, which doubts, to have this bird a client in a “Mossad,” Israel, and that his presence in Saudi Arabia is linked to the task of espionage, in particular that when attempts to arrest him was defending itself in a way appear highly trained, where he was called out of his mouth small pieces of metal were published smell and then pick them back. – As media reports said.

However, the Nature Protection Authority of Israel, which confirmed the presence of this eagle in Saudi airspace, denied that the transmitter is located on the body of the eagle with the purposes of espionage, but to find out his whereabouts, only, has also confirmed that this eagle was caught in Israel in 2008, and has been trained and maintain him until he reached the age of six years.

And according to Saudi newspapers, the process of arrest and fishing eagle “spy” working for the Mossad is the second of its kind in Saudi Arabia and in a short period. – As press sources said.

Meanwhile, here are the first photos of the “Mossad agent’s” apprehension

Notice the look of determination on the Saudi man’s face. He believes he’s just caught the Israeli James Bond. Our Ace Vultura, if you will.

I hate to break it to the Saudis, but it looks very much like a regularly tagged vulture. And if you don’t believe me, see here for similar photos.

But they should feel free to launch an investigation into this latest Zionist outrage. Heck, I can even recommend someone to lead it.

Bird brains.