As you know, conservatives have been engaged in a full-throttle campaign to distort Obama’s positions on Israel, as part of a comically transparent effort to achieve the almost-never-realized conservative dream of driving a wedge between Jewish voters and the Democratic Party. Some on the right have confidently asserted that Obama’s recent speeches on the Middle East have finally unmasked his hostility to Israel and his shameful (if carefully disguised) sympathy for Palestinians.
In that context, you’d think this Pew poll would be getting a bit more attention:
Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, far more Americans continue to say they sympathize with Israel rather than the Palestinians (by 48% to 11%). These opinions are little changed from recent years.
A plurality (50%) says Barack Obama is striking the right balance in the Middle East situation, while 21% say he favors the Palestinians too much. There has also been no change in these views over the past year; in April 2010, 47% said Obama struck the right balance and 21% said he favored the Palestinians too much.
Barely more than a fifth of Americans agree with the right’s contention that Obama has revealed himself as too pro-Palestinian even though they’re also far more disposed to sympathize with Israel.
And that’s not all. Not even Republicans and white evangelicals — who appear to be one of the target audiences of the campaign to paint Obama as anti-Israel — are willing to go along in any greater numbers with this nonsense:
Even among Republicans and white evangelicals -- who already were more likely to say that Obama tilts too much toward the Palestinians -- there has been no significant increase in the percentages expressing this view since last year.
Unfortunately, Pew tells me that the sample of Jewish Americans surveyed is too small to indicate whether there's been any movement among them on these questions. I have no doubt that Obama’s reelection team is worried about this possibility; they’d be committing malpractice if they didn’t worry about everything that might go wrong. But as I and Ben Smith have both pointed out, it’s highly unlikely that Obama will lose a meaningful amount of Jewish support in the end.
To be sure, the campaign to paint-Obama as anti-Israel isn’t just about Israel. As I’ve noted before, it’s also part of an effort to feed a broader narrative, in which the Kenyan Muslim Marxist in the White House harbors seething hostility and ill will towards a fellow western-style democracy struggling to survive against existential threats from hordes of Arab and Muslim enemies.
I don’t know how you measure whether that subtext is gaining any traction, but the first national poll taken since Obama’s Mideast speeches seems to demonstrate clearly that the American public overwhelmingly rejects the topline argument conservatives are making about them.
UPDATE: The poll shows that less than half of Republicans, 40 percent, say Obama is too pro-Palestinian, only marginally more than the 31 percent who say he strikes the right balance. Among white evangelicals, the numbers are 39-33 — and neither category has shifted much at all since last year.
UPDATE II: It gets even better. I just got a further breakdown of the numbers from Mike Dimock, the associate director at Pew Research, and he tells me that a plurality of those who are more sympathetic with Israel also say Obama has the balance right.
Of those who are more sympathetic to Israel, 49 percent say he strikes the right balance, versus only 38 percent who say he favors the Palestinians too much.
Today Instead Of Bashing Pres. Obama Over His "1967 Border" Comments, Israeli Prime Minister"Bibi" Netanyahu Delivered An Allied Friendly Exhortation Before Congress On His Country's Due Diligence To Help Maintain Middle East Peace.
Netanyahu's Kind Words Further Proves All Of The Previous Unnecessary Controversy Stirred Up By The Mainstream Media Following Pres. Obama's Statements Was Nothing More Than 2012 Political Drama Attempting To Make Him Appear Anti-Semitic.
(I Presume That In Secret Bibi Realized It Might Not Be Wise To Fight With Pres. Obama On This Matter. Fighting Is NOT The Same As Negotiating & Rarely Achieves Results.)
It Also Proves Bibi's Desires To Keep Israel's Foreign Policy Partnership With America Strong.
Regarding Pres. Obama's "1967 Border" Comments, He Only Stated In Public What Many World Leaders Have Been Saying For Years In Private, Including Former U.S. President George W. Bush.
Going Forward I'm Very Happy To See That Both Pres. Obama & Benjamin Netanyahu Will Remain Committed To Israel's Security.
And Even If A Reasonable Peace Agreement Can NOT Be Reached This Year, Something Definitely Needs To Be Done ASAP To Protect Israel's Borders & Keep Her From Being Blown Off The Map By Iran's Nuclear Weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday that he is prepared to make "painful compromises" for a peace deal with the Palestinians, but reiterated his insistence that Israel will never return to the boundaries that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.
Netanyahu said he is prepared to be "generous" in regard to the size of a future Palestinian state, but stressed the importance of keeping control over certain densely settled areas within the West Bank. He stressed that Israeli security will be a major consideration in the establishment of future boundaries.
The prime minister flatly ruled out any so-called "right of return" for Palestinian families who left Israel after the state's founding in 1948.
"Jews from around the world have a right to immigrate to the Jewish state," Netanyahu said. "Palestinians from around the world should have a right to immigrate, if they so choose, to a Palestinian state. This means that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel."
The prime minister blamed Palestinians for refusing to recognize the Jewish state's right to exist, and repeated his demand that Jerusalem remain united as Israel's capital.
Netanyahu's speech in the House chamber -- a rare honor for a foreign leader -- was billed by many observers as a response to President Barack Obama's call last Thursday for peace talks based on the 1967 lines with "mutually agreed" land swaps.
Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, were both on hand for the Israeli leader's remarks. Netanyahu was warmly received by Democrats and Republicans alike.
"I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace," Netanyahu declared. "In a genuine peace, we'll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland."
"Some settlements will end up beyond Israel's (current) borders," he acknowledged. But "Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967."
Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 war. The Sinai has since been returned to Egypt. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, a move not recognized by the international community and condemned by Syria, which still claims the land.
The more militant group Hamas now controls Gaza, while the more moderate Palestinian group Fatah administers the West Bank, site of a growing number of Israeli settlements. Ultimately, the Palestinians are aiming to unite Gaza and the West Bank under the authority of a new state.
Netanyahu flatly ruled out negotiations with Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by both the United States and Israel. He also dismissed prospects of United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state later this year.
"Peace cannot be imposed. It must be negotiated," he said.
At the same time, Netanyahu insisted Israel must be allowed to maintain a military presence along the Jordan River, the eastern boundary of the West Bank.
For their part, Palestinian officials have refused to enter into new talks with Israel on the decades-old conflict until Israel stops building settlements on occupied West Bank land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.
Looking beyond the dispute with the Palestinians, Netanyahu highlighted the growing danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.
"Time is running out," Netanyahu warned. "The greatest danger facing humanity could soon be upon us: a militant Islamic regime armed with nuclear weapons."
"If history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously," he said. "We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust. When we say never again, we mean never again. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself."
The Israeli leader congratulated the Obama administration for the recent U.S. military mission resulting in the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
"Congratulations America," he said. "You got bin Laden. Good riddance."
One top Palestinian official blasted the tone of Netanyahu's remarks, telling CNN that the speech was "more talking about war than about piece."
This is "annoying to the greatest extent," said Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Fatah.
Among other things, Shaath criticized Netanyahu's refusal to consider a right of return for the descendents of Palestinians who left around the time of Israel's founding.
Israel is "talking about the right for a people to go back to a land they thought they had 4,000 years ago, but for refugees from Palestine that were driven out of their land only 60 years ago, this is an impossibility for them to get back to their homes," Shaath said.
Having Israeli troops on both sides of a demilitarized West Bank "doesn't make (a future Palestinian nation) a sovereign state by any chance," he asserted.
Without serious peace talks, the Palestinian Authority will seek a formal recognition of statehood at the United Nations in September, Shaath insisted. He dismissed the "furor" over the role of Hamas in such talks, calling it a "pretext for not going into any serious negotiations."
Shaath also said the repeated applause for Netanyahu by members of Congress calls into "serious question ... the even-handedness of America when it comes to a question that is that important to the people of Palestine and the people of the Middle East."
Netanyahu's speech on Capitol Hill was disrupted briefly by a protester who was heard screaming, "Equal rights for Palestine," before police escorted her out of the chamber.
On Monday night, activists from the American anti-war activist group Code Pink interrupted Netanyahu's speech to the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee at least twice. The group criticized what it called "the theft of Palestinian land" and the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
AIPAC is a major force in U.S. politics, drawing top administration and congressional leaders to its conventions.
In his own speech to AIPAC on Sunday, Obama asserted that the "status quo" in the Israel-Palestinian conflict is unsustainable. The president also insisted once again that Israel's pre-1967 borders should be the starting point for negotiations over the shape of a future Palestinian state.
The proposal is a long-standing formulation in peace talks that Obama has now expressed as official U.S. policy for the first time.
"It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation," Obama said to applause. "It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years," including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides."
But Obama also criticized the Palestinian push to seek U.N. recognition of an independent state, and a Palestinian Authority-Hamas agreement to hold unifying elections in 2012.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Congratulations America! "You got bin Laden. Good riddance!"
"Some settlements will end up beyond Israel's (current) borders, But "Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967."
Pres. Obama: "It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation.
"It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years," including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides."
As It Relates To President Obama Recently Proposing Israel Return To Her 1967 Or Pre-1967 Borders, I Really Don't Understand What All The Fuss Is About Since Former President G.W. Bush Invoked The Same Policy While Still In Office.
When Bush Proposed Such Policy Does Anyone Recall The Media (Especially CNN & Fox News) Blasting Him About It?
I Don't!
For The Record Pres. Obama Wasn't Attempting To Throw Israel Under The Bus Or Damage Our Alliance Partnership With Israel.
Instead He Was Encouraging Peace Talks Between Israeli & Palestinian Leaders, In Hopes Of Them Hashing Out An Agreement Both Countries Can Live With For Many Years To Come.
Let's Just Face It Folks, This Unnecessary, Fake Anti-Semitic Controversy Is Nothing More Than A Mainstream Media Ploy To Scare Jewish Voters Away From Pres. Obama In 2012.
It Won't Work!
Oh Well Such Is The Dirty World Of Politics Before Another General Election.
President Obama sought to reassure Israel and its supporters of “ironclad” U.S. support Sunday in a speech to a Jewish lobbying group that also warned that time could be running out for a peace accord with Palestinians.
Obama, wading afresh into a topic that evoked anger from Israeli leaders last week, insisted again that 1967 boundary lines should be the starting point for talks on a new Palestinian state. But he allowed that the dividing line would be negotiated to accommodate Israeli settlements and security needs.
“Israelis and Palestinians will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967,” Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at its annual conference in Washington.
While sticking to the views he outlined in a Middle East policy speech Thursday, Obama more clearly aligned his position on borders to one espoused by the George W. Bush administration in 2004. The Bush White House had concluded that a return to the precise boundaries that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war was “not realistic,” because of the presence of large Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Acknowledging that Israel faced “hard choices” and security risks, Obama argued that stalling on peace negotiations posed even greater dangers for the country’s survival. The Arab Spring movement and changing demographic forces — including growing numbers of Palestinians west of the Jordan River — present long-term challenges to Israel that will be resolved only by the creation of separate homelands for Jews and Palestinians, he said.
Meanwhile, Israel faces increasing political isolation as Palestinians press their demands for international recognition of a Palestinian state, Obama said.
“No matter how hard it may be to start meaningful negotiations under current circumstances, we must acknowledge that a failure to try is not an option,” he said. “The status quo is unsustainable.”
Reassurances
Obama also reiterated themes of unshakable support for Israel that brought loud applause from the packed auditorium of nearly 10,000. He affirmed U.S. opposition to a Palestinian plan to seek a vote in the U.N. General Assembly on Palestinian statehood in September. He vowed to help Israel defend itself, promising U.S. military assistance on missile defense and pledging to block Iranian nuclear aspirations. And he assailed a recent Palestinian unity agreement that elevated the stature of the Hamas movement, which the United States and Israel regard as a terrorist group.
“No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction,” he said.
Obama said he was not surprised by the uproar over his Thursday speech but added that “if there is controversy, it is not based on substance.”
“What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately,” he said. “I’ve done so because we can’t afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades to achieve peace. The world is moving too fast. The extraordinary challenges facing Israel will only grow. Delay will undermine Israel’s security and the peace that the Israeli people deserve.”
While the president’s core message differed little, Obama appeared to have succeeded in easing the concerns of some Israelis who had sharply criticized his speech Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who met with Obama for more than two hours Friday, issued a statement saying he was “determined to work with President Obama to find ways to renew peace negotiations.”
“I share the president’s desire to advance peace and I appreciate his efforts, past and present, to achieve this goal,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.
The Israeli leader, initially angered by Obama’s call for 1967 border lines as a starting point for negotiations, has since told aides that he is reassured about Obama’s intentions after their talks Friday.
A ‘positive change’
Josh Block, a former AIPAC spokesman who is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, said Obama’s speech Sunday was a “strong reaffirmation of the U.S.-Israel relationship and represented an important and positive change” from his remarks Thursday.
“By adding a whole section to the speech that was missing on Thursday, President Obama put himself in line with presidents since Lyndon Johnson who have said again and again, Israel cannot go back to the 1949/1967 lines,” Block said. “This is an important and crucial change from what he said last week.”
Other Middle East experts said Obama had made important progress in linking the peace process with Israel’s future security.
“If this is the beginning of a move to publicly convince Israelis and AIPAC partisans about the importance of peace in the language that they best understand — i.e. security — then it’s a really good step,” said Joel Rubin, chief operating officer for the National Security Network, a progressive-leaning think tank.
A Palestinian official also expressed cautious support for the president’s remarks and appeared to offer hope that the push for a U.N. vote in September could be delayed if there is significant progress toward a peace settlement.
“We are not in the business of delegitimizing Israel. We’re in the business of legitimizing Palestinians,” Maen Rashid Areikat, a Palestinian diplomat and chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s delegation in Washington, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Yet a key Arab advocate for Mideast peace said in remarks released Sunday that he had little hope for progress in the near future.
“My instincts tell me not to expect much over the next couple of months, unfortunately,” King Abdullah II of Jordan told ABC News’s “This Week” in an interview taped before Obama’s Thursday speech. “I just have a feeling that we’re going to be living with the status quo for 2011.”
Although questions about his Mideast policy are likely to linger, Obama will be tending to other allies during a weeklong trip to Ireland, England, France and Poland that begins late Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he would not restrict construction in east Jerusalem, a step requested by the U.S., but would upgrade upcoming indirect talks with the Palestinians to include the main issues dividing them.
Netanyahu originally had wanted to put off a discussion of issues like the status of contested east Jerusalem, final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees until direct talks are launched.
It was not clear what Netanyahu's declared refusal to budge on east Jerusalem -- the territory that lies at the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- would mean for future relations with Washington and the rest of the international community.
Netanyahu's moves go nowhere near the U.S. demand to cancel a major new housing project at the heart of the row, but apparently he has offered enough to prompt U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to call them "useful and productive" and dispatch an envoy back to the region this week.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, who was touring the Gaza Strip on Sunday, told reporters that Netanyahu would be meeting with President Barack Obama while in the U.S. The prime minister's office had no immediate confirmation.
He described Israel's recent opening of Gaza's borders to allow in window frames and other supplies to complete a 151-apartment U.N. housing project in southern Gaza as "a drop in a bucket of water."
The blockade causes "unacceptable suffering" and "undercuts moderates and encourages extremists," he said, after visiting the project in the Khan Younis refugee camp. "My message to the people of Gaza is this: the United Nations will stand with you, through this ordeal."
Most of the 15,000 homes destroyed or damaged during Israel's war in Gaza that ended in January last year have also not been repaired because of the blockade. Israel launched the war after years of militant rocket fire from Gaza on its southern communities.
Hamas police lined the streets in areas Ban visited. They repeatedly prevented journalists from keeping up with the U.N. convoy, blocking roads and repeatedly raising their assault rifles in the direction of the journalists' cars.
The blockade was imposed in 2007 after Hamas violently took over the territory.
Israeli construction in east Jerusalem is such a fraught issue because it challenges Palestinian claims to that sector of the city as a future capital. The announcement of a major new building project during Vice President Joe Biden's visit earlier this month insulted Washington and provoked the biggest rift between the two allies in decades.
That rift has put Netanyahu in a particularly difficult bind, forcing him to find a formula that would repair ties with the U.S. without antagonizing his hawkish coalition, which is resistant to partitioning Jerusalem.
Since the feud erupted, Netanyahu has not announced changes in Israel's policy of allowing unrestricted construction in the eastern sector, home to Jerusalem's holiest sites. And his office denied reports that he promised to slow construction in the city's eastern sector.
"Our policy on Jerusalem is the same as that of all previous Israeli governments in the past 42 years and it hasn't changed," he told his Cabinet at the start of its weekly meeting. "As far as we are concerned, building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv. We made this clear to the U.S. administration."
In a call to Clinton on Thursday, Netanyahu did assure the U.S. that a mechanism would be put in place to ensure that such announcements would not take Washington by surprise again, government officials have said.
But Cabinet ministers said in practice, construction will be restricted -- as it has been in the West Bank since November, when Netanyahu officially agreed to do so under heavy U.S. pressure.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Mideast war. The international community does not recognize the annexation and considers the Jewish construction in east Jerusalem to be settlement building.
Netanyahu also told his Cabinet that the U.S.-brokered talks with the Palestinians would include a discussion of the main issues between them, but added that a "real resolution" of the conflicts could only be achieved in direct talks.
These issues include the status of Jerusalem, final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees from the war around Israel's 1948 creation.
Netanyahu originally had wanted to put off any discussion of these issues until direct talks start.
The row over east Jerusalem construction held up the start of the indirect talks, which are to be brokered by Washington's special Mideast envoy, George Mitchell. After Netanyahu spoke with Clinton, Washington announced that Mitchell would return to the region this week to try to get the talks moving.
He is to meet with Netanyahu before the prime minister sets off for Washington and on Monday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Mitchell has said he wanted indirect talks between the leaders to begin as soon as possible.
Interpol places 11 people suspected in the slaying of a Hamas militant leader in Dubai on its most-wanted list on Thursday.
The international police agency said it has issued red notices, its highest-level alert, to its member countries worldwide for "11 internationally wanted individuals who have been charged by UAE-Dubai authorities with coordinating and committing the murder."
Interpol said it was acting on the request of Dubai authorities and that it believes the suspects used false passports.
Interpol issued the notices — which include photographs — "to limit the ability of accused murderers from traveling freely using the same false passports."
Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's body was found Jan. 20 in his room at a luxury hotel near Dubai's international airport.
Dubai's police chief said on Thursday that Interpol should issue a warrant to arrest the head of Israel's spy agency Mossad if the organization was indeed responsible for the killing.
In comments to be aired later on Dubai TV, police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim called for the police authority to issue "a red notice against the head of Mossad ... as a killer in case Mossad is proved to be behind the crime, which is likely now."
Israel has declined to comment on whether its spy agency was responsible, although security officials have also said they were convinced the Mossad was behind the assassination, and harshly criticized the spy agency for allegedly stealing the identities of its own citizens to carry out the hit.
Increasing mystery
Names released by Dubai matched seven people living in Israel, raising questions about why the agency would endanger its own people by using their passport data as cover for a secret death squad.
At the same time, some Israeli experts said the Dubai evidence pointed to a setup to falsely blame Israel.
A vague comment from Israel's foreign minister, who neither confirmed nor denied Mossad's involvement, only added to the spy novel-like mystery surrounding the slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
"Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in Israel's first official comment on the affair, then added: "I don't know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports."
Some senior Israeli security officials not directly involved in the case were less circumspect, saying they were convinced it was a Mossad operation because of the motive — Israel says al-Mabhouh supplied Gaza's Hamas rulers with their most dangerous weapons — and the use of Israeli citizens' identities.
A significant Mossad bungle?
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a government order not to discuss the case, characterized the operation as a significant Mossad bungle.
If it develops into a full-blown security scandal, that could harm Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu politically.
Some compared the case to another Mossad embarrassment during Netanyahu's previous term as prime minister, the failed attempt to kill Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in 1997. Two Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists were captured after injecting Mashaal with poison, and Israel was forced to send an antidote that saved Mashaal's life. Today Mashaal is Hamas' supreme leader.
Still, there was praise for the Dubai operation from some analysts who noted the major difference between it and the Mashaal case is that the latter failed and the former achieved its goal — the assassination of a Hamas commander.
"Al-Mabhouh is dead and all the partners to the operation left Dubai safely," wrote analyst Ronen Bergman of the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
Critics slammed the Mossad, not for killing al-Mabhouh on foreign territory but for doing it sloppily and endangering Israeli citizens in the process. A front-page commentary in Israel's Haaretz daily by defense analyst Amir Oren called for the ouster of Mossad director Meir Dagan.
"What is needed now is a swift decision to terminate Dagan's contract and to appoint a new Mossad chief," he wrote. "There's no disease without a cure."
Identities appear to be stolen
Dubai authorities released names, photos and passport numbers of 11 members of the alleged hit squad this week, saying all 11 carried European passports. But most of the identities appeared to have been stolen, and at least seven matched up with real people in Israel who claim they are victims of identity theft.
Among them is Melvyn Adam Mildiner, a dual Israeli-British citizen who said one of the numbers matched his own UK passport. He told The Associated Press he had never been to Dubai.
Others expressed shock that their names were used. Paul John Keeley, a 43-year-old father of three, told Haaretz he was worried "that someone will try to harm us." Stephen Hodes told Israel Radio: "I'm simply afraid. These are powerful forces."
The revelations by Dubai, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel, raised many questions: Could someone be trying to make it look like the Mossad carried out the hit? Might Israel have wanted to leave behind a fingerprint to enhance the Mossad's mystique? Did Israel underestimate Dubai's policing abilities? Why would Israel risk exposing 11 agents by allowing them to be filmed by Dubai surveillance cameras, even if they were disguised?
Answers were not forthcoming, yet if Israeli involvement is confirmed, the al-Mabhouh killing is likely to be remembered as one of the more stunning hits in the Mossad's history of undercover operations.
The affair could have unwanted diplomatic repercussions for Israel. Britain's Foreign Office summoned Israeli Ambassador Ron Prossor for talks about the case Thursday.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised an inquiry, saying: "The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care."
The death of a Hamas operative in Dubai at the hands of a squad of burly hit men conjures up images of the string of killings that followed the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and a bungled attempt to poison a Hamas leader in Jordan 13 years ago.
Israel's Mossad spy agency — the prime suspect in the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last month in Dubai — has known both triumph and embarrassment in decades of covert warfare, and the latest episode would appear to include elements of each.
The killers, whoever they are, got their man and escaped. But they were caught on video and left behind what appears to be significant evidence: A Dubai police force that proved competent perhaps beyond the agents' expectations found that at least seven of them used the names of real Israelis with European passports.
The Mossad is suspected of several violent incidents in the Mideast in recent years, such as the killing of a top Hezbollah officer in the heart of Damascus in 2008. But its reputation — particularly in the Arab world where it is often seen as an ominous force behind unexplained events — goes back decades.
Munich Killings
In 1972, a group of armed Palestinians raided the rooms of Israel's Olympic team in Munich, killed two athletes and took another nine hostage. A botched rescue attempt by German police ended in the deaths of all of the Israelis in a wild shootout at a nearby military airfield.
Golda Meir, Israel's prime minister at the time, ordered the Mossad to kill those responsible, partly as revenge and partly to deter future attacks. That directive launched an unprecedented covert offensive that saw a string of Palestinian operatives — many of them not directly connected to the Munich massacre — gunned down or blown up across Europe and the Middle East.
Basil al-Kubaisi, for example, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was approached by two men as he left the Cafe de la Paix in Paris one night in April 1973. He had time to yell "Don't do this" in French before the men, assassins from a Mossad outfit known as Caesarea, shot him dead with silenced 0.22 pistols.
That was on a Friday. The following Monday, after long preparations by Mossad agents, Israeli commandos landed in rubber dinghies on the Beirut beach near the Sands Hotel. One of the commandos was Ehud Barak, a future prime minister and the current defense minister, who was disguised as a woman with a brunette wig and makeup.
The assassins killed their targets, three high-ranking Palestinian Liberation Organization men, before fleeing back to their boats. A number of civilian bystanders were also killed.
Other Palestinian operatives were killed by bullets or bombs in Rome, Nicosia, Athens and elsewhere, and the myth of the Mossad — ruthless and skillful with unlimited resources and reach — was born. It has largely held, even in the face of embarrassing blunders.
The Mossad places far more emphasis on special operations like assassinations than intelligence agencies in most other countries, said Ronen Bergman, author of a book on Israeli covert operations against Iran.
"This emphasis is because of Israel's existential fears. This is not policy — it's mindset, the feeling that the Mossad is the final frontier for defending the national security of the state of Israel," he told The Associated Press on Thursday.
That aggressive approach has led to a few very public errors. In July 1973, on a Saturday night in the small Norwegian town of Lillehammer, Mossad gunmen shot and killed a man they believed was Ali Hassan Salameh, a top Palestinian operative known as the Red Prince. The victim turned out to be an innocent Moroccan waiter named Ahmed Bouchiki. Six of the agents were captured and put on trial in Norway for the bungled killing.
It was six years before the Mossad caught up with Salameh himself, using a Volkswagen packed with plastic explosives to kill him in the middle of Beirut.
The Lillehammer fiasco revealed an interesting aspect of Mossad operations: two of the captured agents were women. One, Sylvia Rafael, a South African-Israeli dual national who was imprisoned in Norway, later married her Norwegian defense attorney.
In the Dubai killing last month, closed circuit TV cameras filmed a member of a surveillance duo whom Dubai authorities identified as an Irish national named Gail Folliard, and who is seen at one point entering a bathroom and emerging with her blond hair concealed under a black wig.
Khaled Mashaal, one of Hamas' top leaders, was walking in Amman, Jordan in 1997, a time when the Islamic group was carrying out deadly bombings in Israeli cities. Two Mossad men reportedly using Canadian passports tried to kill him with a device that released a toxin into his ear, but the plan was disrupted by the Hamas man's bodyguard, who began chasing the Israelis.
Diplomatic Crisis
They were arrested by Jordanian police, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Israel and Jordan.
The Israeli prime minister who authorized that attack was Benjamin Netanyahu, who became Israel's leader again last year and would have had to green-light the Dubai operation, if Israel carried it out. At the time, Netanyahu was forced to send an antidote to Jordan, saving Mashaal's life, and to free Hamas' spiritual leader from jail in return for the release of the two captured agents.
The covert war might be ugly, but it is a necessity, said Rafi Sutton, 78, who served as a Mossad agent in Europe in the 1970s.
"If we, the citizens of Israel, want this state to continue to exist, we must be ready to fight for it day and night, in the light and also in the darkness," he told the AP.
The organization deserves its reputation, he said.
"The Mossad's name was bought with years of success in operations. It's not for nothing — it has some of the best people in the world, each of whom contributed their thinking and daring and improvisation," Sutton said.
The Mossad's reputation is such that its mistakes are often seen as having been done on purpose, and it is often implicated in things it did not do, said Aaron J. Klein, a former Israeli intelligence officer whose book "Striking Back" documents the Mossad's deadly response to the Munich attack.
It will not bring a Solution
In 2005, Klein asked a group of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militants in an Israeli jail to give him a list of people they believed had been killed by the Mossad. He then checked their list against information he had from Mossad sources. Of the some 40 names on the list, fewer than half had actually been killed by Israeli agents.
Mossad assassinations provide Israel with a short-term tactical advantage by eliminating enemies, he said. But the long-term effect is uncertain.
"I sometimes feel that we turn to this a bit too much and put a lot of energy and resources into it because it's easier than dealing with strategic matters, like actually deciding what to do with Hamas. That's more complicated," Klein said.
"There is a tendency to turn to things that are familiar," Klein said. "It works. Of course it works. But it will not bring a solution."
Former President Jimmy Carter apologized this week for criticizing Israel for its treatment of Palestinians in his writings and comments, statements like calling the Jewish nation an "apartheid" state which, he suggests, may have stigmatized it.
Carter's Al Het, which means "for the sin" in Hebrew, actually came earlier in the week when Carter issued it to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. But it really started to go viral Wednesday.
An open letter to the Jewish community at the season of Chanukah from former President Jimmy Carter:
The time of Chanukah and the Christian holidays presents an occasion for reflection on the past and for looking to the future. In that vein, I wish to share some thoughts with you about the State of Israel and the Middle East.
I have the hope and a prayer that the State of Israel will flourish as a Jewish state within secure and recognized borders in peaceful co-existence with its neighbors and with all the Moslem States, and that this peaceful co-existence will bring security, prosperity and happiness to the people of Israel and to the people of the Middle East of all faiths.
I have the hope and a prayer that the bloodshed and hatred will change to mutual respect and cooperation, fulfilling the prophetic aspiration that the lion shall lie down with the lamb in harmony and peace. I likewise hope that violent attacks against all civilians will end, which will help set a better framework for commencing negotiations. I further hope that peace negotiations can soon commence, with all issues on the negotiating table.
I have the hope and a prayer that just as Chanukah is the Festival of Lights, the State of Israel will fulfill its destiny as a light unto the nations.
We must recognize Israel's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.
May we work and pray for that better day.
Hag Semach and Happy Chanukah.
Carter's apology met with some skepticism. Did it have anything to do with his grandson running for a Georgia state senate seat? Carter said no.
JTA has a piece in which the two Carters seek to put to rest the idea of a link between the apology and the Senate race:
Jason Carter, 34, an Atlanta-area lawyer, is considering a run to fill a seat covering suburban DeKalb County should the incumbent, David Adelman, win confirmation as President Obama's designated ambassador to Singapore.
The seat, which is university heavy -- Emory, among others, is situated there -- also has a substantial Jewish community.
The senior Carter outraged Jewish leaders with his book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid," and they strongly criticized the former U.S. president for what appeared to be his likening of Israel's settlement practices to apartheid and seeming to place the brunt of the blame for a lack of peace on Israel.
On the subsequent book tour, Carter further enraged many Jews by intimating that the pro-Israel lobby inhibited an evenhanded U.S. policy.
Such bad blood could potentially translate into problems for Carter's grandson as he considers launching a political career.
But in an interview with JTA, Carter insisted that ethnic electoral considerations were not reason enough to reach out to the Jewish community, although he did not outright deny that it was a factor.
"Jason has a district, the number of Jewish voters in it is only 2 percent," he said, chuckling.
In a statement issued through his campaign manager, the younger Carter said the statement was not connected to his campaign.
"While I was very happy to see my grandfather's letter, it was completely unrelated to my campaign. The letter is a product of discussions with some of his friends in the Jewish community that have been going on for a long time. I, like many others, see this as a great step towards reconciliation," Jason Carter said in the statement.
"As for my campaign, I intend to reach out to all people in District 42 and work hard to earn their trust and their votes. Ultimately, this campaign will focus on the people of this district and the issues that a good advocate in the Georgia State Senate can affect, including fixing a broken transportation system, getting the economy moving again, and providing a first-class education to our kids."
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