What really happened in Dubai?

The truth is, nobody knows for sure, including the Dubai police.

About the only thing we do know is that Dubai has been making a lot of noise about an assassination that may have never happened (see the Ma’an News Agency article from 20 January, stating that Hamas announced the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh from terminal cancer at a UAE hospital, posted several hours before the body was discovered: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=255640 ).

Less noise has been made by Dubai about the fact that al-Mabhouh himself was carrying five different passports with different names on them, initially reported by The Times of London, but disappearing since then.

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Much talk, little fact

At the end of the day, we don’t really know what happened in Dubai

Sima Kadmon Published: 02.27.10, 14:00 / Israel Opinion

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Almost a month has passed since the assassination of Hamas man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, and soon we shall find out that only three Israelis were not connected to this operation, and only because they happened to be sick with the swine flu at the time.

However, the criticism expressed here is not directed at the people who carried out the operation, but rather, at the journalists and commentators who cover it. At junctions where there is no information or leaks and where reality is much greater than fiction, every commentator is king.

Everyone knows what he’s talking about and everyone has something to say. And now try to prove they’re wrong.

So let’s admit it: We have no idea how it works; we have no idea what was planned, who carried it out, and what exactly took place in Dubai. We have no idea why the photos of the operatives were exposed and what it means.

Indeed, the days where we adored everything that our security forces did and believed they cannot do wrong or fail are long gone, yet we cannot have a situation whereby everyone explains the supposed screw-ups from their living room sofas.

Dagan suffered injustice

Today one is not allowed to say anything positive, because if you say something like that, you immediately turn into a public relations agent. Even when the world will be forgetting the protests over the utilization of foreign passports, we will continue to disparage, criticize, and raise an eyebrow.

A person who is intimately familiar with these types of operations said this week that 80% of what had been published is nothing like what happened in reality. He said that the operatives who were “burned” and the elements that were uncovered are not the important things.

What’s important, he said, is that the operation was undertaken under difficult conditions, the main objective had been reached, and everyone returned back home safely.

A great injustice had been done here mostly to Mossad Director Meir Dagan, said the man, who is also just another commentator. If everything Dagan did will be released for publication in 100 years, he said, everyone will have to rise from their graves, go over to Dagan’s grave, and ask for his forgiveness.

And now, let’s all just raise an eyebrow.

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With all the Brouhaha over the “assassination”, the fact that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was a confessed kidnapper, murderer, suicide bombing planner and illicit arms dealer has been ignored completely.

Personally, I find the whole thing pretty artificial and manufactured, for these reasons:

Several weeks before his death, the Hamas command insisted al-Mabhouh give an interview to Al-Jazeera, in which he admitted his participation in the abduction and murder of Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa’adon, his participation in planning and commanding numerous suicide bombings during the second intifada and his participation in the arms pipeline to Hamas.

Interviews or video clips like this are generally made by shaheed before their suicide operations. Reports say that al-Mabhouh was reluctant to give the interview, and initially refused when he was told it had to be re-done because he might be identified by the first interview.

Could he have figured he was being set up?

Hamas’ popularity is waning and they haven’t had a high-profile shaheed for many years now. An alternative possibility is that either Iran or Hamas caught al-Mabhouh with his hand in the cookie jar—stealing public funds for private purposes seems to be a characteristic of the Palestinians in a position to do so, why should al-Mabhouh be any different?

Perhaps it was a combination of the two—the second leading to the first?

The only thing I’m sure of is that the only people who will ever know “ the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” about this death, whether it was natural, murder or assassination are the people involved—and we’ll probably never know who they are, either.

All the speculation is baseless and the accusations are premature. If any apologies are due to Israel at a later date, you can be sure that they’ll be buried in the back pages of the newspapers that were most vocal in their accusations… probably near the “hatched, matched and dispatched” section.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh made a choice about the way he lived. His brother left Hamas several years ago and is trying to live a normal life—Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had the same option, but chose differently. He knew that the chances of his dying in bed of old age were slim, yet he chose his way on his own.

Who killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh? We’ll probably never know. Just like the Syrian investigation of Imad Mugniyeh’s death disappeared from the news after there was no evidence of Israeli involvement, this killing will probably also disappear when no real evidence linking Israel to the case comes to light.

Speculation and opinions are one thing, evidence that meets the rules of evidence and the burden of proof is quite another. This case is long on the former, short on the latter.

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Flash! Today, the Dubai police chief announced that al-Mabhouh wasn’t “tortured and strangled”, but was given a drug that “relaxed his muscles” and then strangled. If toxicology reports took more than a month, the Dubai police are less efficient than the Keystone Kops. Additionally, the drug named, succinylcholine, would have “relaxed” him enough to strangle him without any other action. Maybe the next article on this subject should be:

“How many ways did Mahmoud al-Mabhouh die?”