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NEWS & LETTERS, March-April 2010
World in View
Murder in Dubai
by Gerry Emmett
The assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on Jan. 19 shows the very perilous state of the entire region. The hit was probably carried out by Israeli agents using passports stolen from people with joint Israeli-European citizenship. It was likely directed at interfering with the Iranian arms pipeline into Gaza, the same operation that was bombed in Somalia last year with a serious loss of life. But it should not be forgotten that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have an interest in undermining Iranian influence.
If the truth of what happened in Room 230 of the Al Bustan Rotana hotel ever becomes known, it could involve any number of players beyond the 27 fugitive suspects so far identified by Dubai police. It may be one more incident in a larger power struggle that could easily become a major, and tragic, regional war.
The Mabhouh assassination has sparked controversy and some soul-searching in Israel, with the leading newspaper Haaretz calling for the resignation of intelligence chief Meir Dagan. A dangerous new stage of reaction was also reached in Israel with the attacks on the New Israel Fund (NIF) by a right-wing student group, Im Tirzu. The group, led by a veteran of last year's war on Gaza, accused the NIF of being a "pseudo-human rights organization using the terminology of human rights to create a blood libel upon Israeli soldiers."
This accusation was made because the NIF has contributed money to many Israeli human rights groups that provided information for the Goldstone Report. The massive Goldstone Report documented Israeli war crimes (along with others') in the war on Gaza. Im Tirzu, with the approval of the current Israeli government, has attempted a broad-based attack on all critics of that government, but especially the peace movement.
The New Israel Fund was forced to deny being an enemy of Israel, and a statement by the social democratic party Meretz, of which the Fund's director Naomi Chazan has been a member, said this: "It warns of the McCarthyist slope on which we find ourselves. These are civil society organizations that stand at the forefront of the struggle for Israel's democratic image and civic character."
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