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March 12, 2010 – 6:40 pm | by palestine
WRITTEN BY BRENDA HEARD Antonio Cassese, President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), recently presented the First Annual Report on the operation and activities of the Tribunal during the period from 1 March 2009 to 28 February 2010. With its remit to investigate the 14 February 2005 Beirut bombing that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others, the international Tribunal has been busy. The year has been spent “establishing the basic structure of the institution” and gathering “evidence against both the direct perpetrators of the crimes, as well as the ‘perpetrators behind the perpetrators’ – i.e. those senior political, military and paramilitary leaders who – although physically, geographically or temporally removed from the crimes – in fact bear the greatest responsibility.”
Cassese notes the “obvious discipline and sophistication of those behind the attack.” He explores at length the theoretical ethos of the work being undertaken, a step he terms “indispensable.” He concludes that
“All the organs of the STL are not unmindful of the host of hurdles they will have to face, both at present and when they begin to discharge their judicial mandate fully. But they are prepared to surmount those hurdles with intrepidity. After all, the undertakings of anybody struggling for the realization of human rights, and in this case, for the vindication of the rights of the victims and the punishment of the authors of very serious misdeeds, is a labour of Sisyphus.”
Intrepid as they may be, however, it must be remembered what the tale of Sisyphus has come to symbolise: a task that accomplishes nothing beyond its own futile implementation. The mythological figure, you will recall, was subject to the eternal punishment of pushing a boulder up a hill, waiting for it to roll back down, and then pushing it up again and again.
The complex mysteries of unsolved assassinations in Lebanon, Cassese suggests, may always remain just that. It is ironic timing then, that just as the STL published its report, we find other perplexing news reports on this complex business of assassinations in the Middle East. There is the admiration expressed for a British/Israeli “spy.” And there is the audacious pride exhibited over the recent “Dubai mission.”
“He exemplified how to fulfill a public mission,” said Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in praise of David Kimche, who died of cancer 8 March. Born and bred in Britain, Kimche emigrated to Palestine in 1946, where he went to work for the Zionist project of Israel. As agent and later deputy head of the Mossad, as well as director-general of the Foreign Ministry, Kimche “took to his grave,” says the Jerusalem Post, “scores of secrets about Israeli clandestine activities that were not only classified information, but in many cases were without documentation and filed only in his brain.”
Israeli media champions this “master of disguise” who posed as a British businessman, a journalist, or maybe a diplomat, with his “extraordinary talent for winning people’s confidence,” noting that the “work he did in Arab countries is inestimable.”
Following the killing of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, for instance, Kimche “helped direct Israel's spectacular revenge” with the aid of its European agents: a string of assassinations in Lebanon and across Europe. “The aim was not so much revenge but mainly to make them frightened,” Kimche stated. “We wanted to make them look over their shoulders and feel that we are upon them. And therefore we tried not to do things by just shooting a guy in the street—that’s easy.”
Easy indeed.
Kimche was well-suited to his position, as he was “known for his elegant English accent and courteousness, and these qualities sometimes deceived people, as he could be very cunning, determined, and even cruel.” He was just the man to woo the Francophile, Christian Phalangists in Lebanon, in order to set the groundwork of allies for the Israeli military invasion in 1982, when assassinations were camouflaged amongst the carnage of the brutal onslaught that ensued.
Yet inexplicably, Kimche inspired an aura of admiration rather than disgust. The BBC labels him a “spymaster,” a “descendant of a prominent Swiss Jewish family.” Haaretz finds him “similar in style to the characters described by the British author John le Carre in his spy novels.”
(Quote sources: Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, BBC)
It seems there are many who admire the Bondian license to kill. American media giant ABC expresses amusement that “After Dubai Hit, Sales of Mossad Merchandise Soar.” The “tale of an Israeli hit squad swooping into an Arab country to kill a Palestinian militant commander,” ABC reports, “has sparked pride” in Israel. Quoting a representative of Israel-Catalog.com, t-shirts reading “don’t mess with the Mossad” are now best sellers. “Before the Mossad operation no one was really interested in these t-shirts, but now everyone wants one.” Many varieties are available, including “Mossad’s Dubai Operation” (now on “weekly special”) and “I’m Gail Folliard’s alibi.” This last one is particularly noteworthy. As Folliard is wanted by Interpol for an arrest warrant issued by the UAE for Crimes against Life and Death, it is a fair indication of the extent that cover-up is routinely endorsed in this complex business of assassination.
The Western-Middle Eastern collusion is far from an isolated incident. On 9 March Dubai's police chief accused Israel of “vast falsification” of travel documents, noting that dozens of false passports have been uncovered:
“Israel is falsifying Western passports on a large scale. We discover forged passports on a daily basis. The world must stop an operation of vast falsification of official documents (that) a formal body (Israel's spy agency Mossad) is carrying out. It is shameful for the European countries that a country which claims to be a state of law is falsifying their passports. This is an unprecedented phenomenon for one country to forge the documents of another, [which is] usually done by criminal gangsters, not states.” [AFP]
Meanwhile, an Israeli supermarket has created a new advertising campaign. Mocking the security camera footage showing suspected assassins in Dubai, the commercial shows actors carrying tennis rackets, and wearing hats, glasses and wigs — the same disguises worn by the alleged killers — as they make their way through store aisles. “We offer killer prices,” announces the advertisement's tagline. The advertising executive responsible claims “It's a funny take of this event.” [AP]
“Event”? An assassination, an international scandal steeped in fraud and political greed, is laughed off as an “event” suitable for parody. Clever salesmen ridicule the justice system to joe-public, who parades the untouchable crime and criminal on his t-shirt. A cold-blooded con-man who ordered executions like room service is remembered for his cunning and polished accent.
Assassinations in and around Lebanon have for years been challenged only by gossip. Yet in this complex business of international intrigue, we see $51.4 million in the first year alone being spent in a Netherlands office building to house a “Special” Tribunal for Lebanon. A tribunal that hopes somehow it might balance its aim to “render expeditious and true justice and to accomplish the truth-seeking mission entrusted upon it by its founding instruments” on the one hand. . . with a boulder-pushing Sisyphus on the other.
Tags: Analysis, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Dubai Assassination, freedom, Hamas, Hariri, Israel, justice, Lebanon, Mary's Choice, Mossad, Newswire, occupation, Palestine, politics, Zionism
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