After his demise, the Israeli’s can now boast how they tried to assassinate Yasser Arafat by downing a civilian airliner.

○ How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine | NY Times |

    The radar on the F-15s picked up the blip of the transport plane, a DHC-5 Buffalo, 370 miles into Mediterranean airspace. The fighters closed rapidly. They read the tail number, saw the blue-and-brown markings. They were positive they’d found the right plane.

    The lead pilot keyed his radio. “Do we have permission to engage?”

    It was the afternoon of Oct. 23, 1982. Deep beneath the ground of central Tel Aviv, inside the Israeli Air Force’s main command-and-control bunker, code-named Canary, the pilot’s question played over a loudspeaker. All eyes were on the commanding officer. Everyone expected an order to open fire, but the air-force commander in chief, Maj. Gen. David Ivry, usually a decisive man, was hesitating.

More below the fold …

Israel releases 9 prisoners in deal for Mossad agents | CNN – Oct. 1997 |

Nine handcuffed Arab prisoners were flown to Jordan Monday as part of a trade that secured the return of two Israeli secret agents in the wake of a bungled assassination attempt.

Israel Radio said the nine — eight Palestinians and a Jordanian — are among dozens of prisoners Israel has agreed to release in exchange for the Mossad agents. The agents were captured after trying to kill Khaled Meshaal, the political chief of the Islamic group Hamas, September 25 in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu persuaded Jordan’s King Hussein to agree to the swap, and last week Israel freed 20 prisoners, including Hamas’ founder and spiritual father, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

Israel has promised to free as many as 50 more in an attempt to soothe ruffled feelings after the assassination attempt soured relations with Jordan and Canada — the agents used fake Canadian passports — and brought a firestorm of criticism down on Netanyahu.

“From time to time, we have to pay a price for something which you had to do,” Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai said. “I think we are not going to release any Hamas (activists) which would be dangerous.”

Israel Planned To Blow Up Passenger Plane In Arafat Assassination Plot

Only, as so often happens, most (if not all) such “conspiracy theories” turn out to be truth, in this case exposed thanks to the work of Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, whose just published explosive book “Rise and Kill First” : “The secret history of Israel’s targeted killings” details such Israeli plans as the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat which included a plot to blow up passenger planes and football stadiums.

Ronen Bergman, the intelligence correspondent for Yediot Aharonot newspaper, persuaded many agents of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military to tell their stories, some using their real names.

The result is the first comprehensive look at Israel’s use of state-sponsored killings.

An excerpt from the book published in The New York Times, details how when former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was defense minister, he ordered the Israeli army to shoot down a passenger plane carrying hundreds of innocent people Arafat was thought to be on. Arafat was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the time. Although the plan was eventually called off, it was allegedly one of a list of plans to to assassinate the Palestinian leader.

How Israel’s leaders use targeted killings to try to ‘stop history’ | Times of Israel |

Tiny Israel, beset by Arab attempts at destruction and the “perpetual menace” of terrorism, developed a highly effective military, arguably the world’s best intelligence agencies, and, in turn, “the most robust, streamlined assassination machine in history.” And on numerous occasions, it was the targeted killing of potent enemies “that saved Israel from very grave crises.” Israel’s intelligence community and its political masters, indeed, have relied on these attacks, and the further deterrent that they create, to avert wars and major conflicts, or at least to widen the gaps between such wider hostilities.

But at the same time, Bergman said in an interview to coincide with the book’s publication, the very success and potency of what are calculated as over 2,700 assassination operations in Israel’s 70-year modern history has sometimes led Israeli politicians to eschew true leadership and diplomacy. They have felt that they have, at their fingertips, he said, “this tool” with which they can “stop history… They can make sure that they achieve their goals with intelligence and special operations, and not by turning to statesmanship and political discourse.”

The Times of Israel sat with Bergman for over two hours to discuss the revelations and implications of his research — eight years of work, 1,000 interviews, untold crates of previously unpublished documents… and a great more material unacceptably unpublished, from his point of view, as a consequence of heavy-handed military censorship.

…
As both his book — titled from the Talmudic counsel, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first” — and the conversation here will confirm, Bergman is torn by the material that he presents.

Talmud or Jewish Law: One Law for Jews; Another Law for Gentiles

In this case, there is no avoiding the fact that the Talmud is heavily biased in favor of the Jew against the gentile. The mishna in Bava Kamma 37b says, “With regard to an ox of a Jew that gored the ox of a gentile, the owner of the belligerent ox is exempt from liability. But with regard to an ox of a gentile that gored the ox of a Jew, regardless of whether the goring ox was innocuous or forewarned, the owner of the ox pays the full cost of the damage.” In other words, a gentile doesn’t even benefit from the rule about an innocuous ox costing only half the damages; his ox is automatically considered forewarned and so responsible for full damages. But a Jew’s ox can hurt a gentile’s ox with impunity.

Jewish Law and Contemporary Warfare

While the biblical narrative about the conquest of Canaan and the commands related to it, have had a deep influence on Western culture, mainstream Jewish traditions throughout history have treated these texts as purely historical or highly conditioned, and in either case not relevant to contemporary life. However, some strains of radical Zionism promote aggressive war and justify them with biblical texts.

Contemporary warfare conducted by the State of Israel is governed by Israeli law and regulation, which includes a purity of arms code that is based in part on Jewish tradition; the 1992 IDF Code of Conduct combines international law, Israeli law, Jewish heritage and the IDF’s own traditional ethical code. Tension between actions of the Israeli government, and Jewish traditions and halakha on the conduct of war, have caused controversy within Israel and have provided a basis for criticisms of Israel.

○ IDF: Hebron soldier said stabber deserved to die, then shot him | Times of Israel |
○ Israeli Chief Rabbis Endorse Ethnic Cleansing, Palestinian Servitude | Tikun Olam |
○ Chabad Rabbi: Jews Should Kill Arab Men, Women and Children During War | Haaretz |

The Jenin Massacre and Arafat holed up in Ramallah … from where Yasser Arafat succumbed from an unidentified poison. Don’t blame the occupier.