The power of words: terrorism, antisemitism, and other qualifiers of killings

The power of words: terrorism, antisemitism, and other qualifiers of killings

    Tuesday, November 26, 2024   No comments

Media coverage and political reaction to the killing of an Israeli emissary of a branch of the Jewish community, Chabad, an affiliate of the "Haredim", in UAE reveal the power of words to determine the emotional, ethical, and legal reaction to an act of violence.

Media outlets struggled to get the headline and summary "right" and politicians rushed to frame with killing as an "act of terrorism" or as act of "antisemitism".

The New York Times's initial coverage framed Kogan's death as a crime where an "Israeli rabbi who disappeared in Dubai is found dead." Reacting to comments by readers who noticed the passive voice and the neutrality embedded in the words "disappeared", the newspaper, which has been struggling to "recalibrate" its editorial policy for coverage the deadly war in Gaza, edited its original heading to say: "An Israeli Rabbi Is Abducted and Killed in the U.A.E."

The Israeli government official reaction indicated that it views “the killing as an act of terrorism,” without accusing any organization or state, though it often accuses “Iran and its allies of seeking to target Israelis abroad.”

Netanyahu characterized Kogan’s killing “a despicable antisemitic terrorist attack.”

The killing took place at a time when Israeli armed forces are involved in wars in Gaza and Lebonon, which killed tens of thousands thus far, and brining protest against Israel in all over the world.

The government of UAE, which normalized its relations with Israel few years ago, is being methodical in solving the murder. Political killings or assassinations involving Isael and Palestinians are not new to UAE.

In 2010, official in Dubai, one of the emirates making the singularity called United Arab Emirates, accused Israel of assassinating a Palestinianmember of Hamas. After weeks of investigation and looking through hundreds of hours of surveillance video, Dubai Police investigators declared that they knew exactly how senior Hamas official, Mahmoud al Mabhouh, was killed in his Dubai hotel room And by whom. Dubai Police said that they were “certain Israel's spy agency Mossad was behind the killing of Mabhouh on January 20^th, 2010”. Although the Israeli government did not official take credit for the killing, which created a diplomatic crisis at the time because Mossad agents used third country diplomatic documents to get into Dubai, individual members of the Israeli government indirectly admitted to assassination.

Then Israeli cabinet minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer appeared to issue a threat against other Hamas leaders while talking on Israel Radio. "None of their people are untouchable, they can all be reached," he said. A former deputy director of Mossad, Ilan Mizrahi, told the Times of London after the killing that "Mossad has been restored to its glory days."

Dubai police ended up naming 26 suspects in the plot to kill Mabhouh. They have published photocopies of the false passports they were travelling on and security camera video of the suspects tracking their victim in his hotel.

Israel is normalizing the assassination of religious leaders by targeting Sistani

Israel is normalizing the assassination of religious leaders by targeting Sistani

    Wednesday, October 09, 2024   No comments

Channel close to Netanyahu included Sistani on Israeli assassination list. Channel 14 Israel published a photo of the highest Shiite authority in Iraq, Ali al-Sistani, as one of the targets of Israeli assassination plans.

The photo of al-Sistani appeared alongside photos of the leader of the Houthi Ansar Allah group, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Naim Qassem, deputy secretary-general of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Yahya Sinwar, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The Israeli channel, which is close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, broadcast the photos yesterday, Tuesday, with the word “target” over the head of each of the aforementioned figures, without explaining the reasons for placing al-Sistani on the assassination list.

The photos appeared while one of the right-wing channel’s correspondents was talking about the possible Israeli response to the missile attack launched by Iran on Israel last Tuesday.

The correspondent said during his interview accompanying the photos that Israel "has made a decision to strike Iran, but the targets that will be attacked have not yet been determined," and he also indicated that the date of the possible Israeli response has not yet been determined either.

He said that unless a decision is made regarding the determination of targets and the date of the response, all possibilities are possible.

Israel has not previously spoken about the assassination of Sistani, although a number of its officials have mentioned the names of all the other figures whose pictures were shown on the channel as potential targets on the Israeli assassination list.

Sistani, who was born in 1930, is a religious authority for the fundamentalist Twelver Shiites and resides in the city of Najaf in central Iraq, which is the center of the main religious science schools known as the "Najaf Seminary," and he is one of the most influential figures in the country due to his broad religious authority. His name might have been added to Israel's assassination list due to his statements about the assassination of the Lebanese leader of Hezbollah. Sistani issued a statement, then, saying that "Martyr Nasrallah is a leadership model that is unparalleled in recent decades"

In his official statement he added: "We received with great sorrow and regret the news of the martyrdom of the great scholar, the hujjat al-Islam and Muslims, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and a group of his brothers in the honorable Lebanese resistance, and dozens of innocent civilians in the horrific massacre committed by the Zionist enemy army in the beloved suburb of Beirut."

He added, "The great martyr was a leadership model that was rarely seen in recent decades. He played a distinguished role in the victory over the Zionist occupation by liberating Lebanese lands and supported the Iraqis with everything he could in liberating their country from the ISIS terrorists. He also took great positions in support of the oppressed Palestinian people until he paid his precious life as a price for that." He added, "As we offer our sincere condolences and deepest sympathy to the noble Lebanese people and all oppressed peoples in this great loss and affliction, we implore God Almighty to bestow His vast mercy and satisfaction upon the deceased and to unite him with His saints, Muhammad and his pure family, in the highest heavens, and to inspire his family and all those who are grieving his loss with patience and solace. To God we belong and to Him we shall return."

Iraqi government responds

In the first reactions, the Iraqi government said that it rejects in the strongest terms any infringement on the status of the supreme religious authority.

The spokesman for the Iraqi government, Bassem Al-Awadi, stressed in an official government statement that "after the Zionist entity has gone too far in its genocidal war, committed blatant crimes against humanity, and openly practiced murder and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon, it is the turn of its inciting and racist media, in a cheap attempt to harm the image of the supreme religious authority."

He added, "the Iraqi government rejects in the strongest terms any infringement on the status of our authority, which is appreciated and respected by all the Iraqi people, the Arab and Islamic worlds, and the international community, and warns of the danger of these attempts based on a racist intellectual background, and foundations that have gone too far in disregarding the sanctities of peoples, which encourages the expansion of the circle of aggression and exposes international security and peace to a real threat."

He continued, "the Zionist entity proves, once again, that it is nothing but a criminal group that thrives on fabricating crises, feeding aggression and wars, and its isolation increases day after day, and the popular and international positions in the world rejecting its behavior are nothing but confirmation of this aggressive trend."

Based on these facts, the Iraqi government- according to the statement - "call on the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and all international and UN forums, to reject and denounce everything that affects the feelings of Muslims in the world, and attempts to undermine figures with global influence and respect."

The statement explained that Iraq, government and people, have made every effort to stop the war, but Israel and its extremist government, in addition to the failure of the international community, have caused the situation to worsen, and today it is trying to spread insults to cover up the clear crimes, which we reject in general, and consider it a dangerous aggression that will not change Iraq's firm and principled position on all fateful issues.

Media Reports: Israeli troops kill an American citizen in West Bank

Media Reports: Israeli troops kill an American citizen in West Bank

    Friday, September 06, 2024   No comments

An American citizen was killed on Friday by Israeli army gunfire in the town of Beita in the Nablus Governorate, north of the occupied West Bank.

Fouad Nafaa, director of Rafidia Governmental Hospital, told Anadolu Agency that an American citizen arrived at the hospital with a bullet wound to the head (...) She underwent resuscitation but was martyred.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that the Israeli army fired live ammunition at Palestinians while they were participating in an activity denouncing settlements on Mount Sabih in the town of Beita, south of Nablus.

In turn, the official Palestinian news agency “Wafa” reported that the activist holds American citizenship and volunteers as part of the “Faz’a” campaign to support and protect Palestinian farmers from violations by the occupation and settlers.

The residents of the town of Beita organize a weekly march after Friday prayers to denounce Israeli settlements, demanding the evacuation of the Avitar settlement built on the summit of Mount Sabih.

AP reported on the same event today, Friday.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Media review: How did Israel track and assassinate leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah?

Media review: How did Israel track and assassinate leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah?

    Friday, August 02, 2024   No comments

There are many theories now being floated by both government sources and media outlets trying to explain the surgical strikes Israel undertook to assassinate leaders of Hamas and other armed factions. Here is a review of what is now circulating in news outlets and on social media platforms.

Iranian agency: Haniyeh was assassinated by a shell that hit his residence

The Iranian Fars News Agency confirmed that the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Ismail Haniyeh, was carried out by a shell that hit his residence, destroying part of its roof and windows. 

It added that investigations confirmed that Israel planned and carried out the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

The New York Times reported that American officials secretly admitted that Israel assassinated Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran, yesterday, Wednesday.

The newspaper explained that the American officials’ statement came despite the fact that Israel did not announce its adoption of the assassination and refused to comment on the incident publicly.

In contrast, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari claimed on Thursday that the army did not launch any airstrikes on Iran or any other country in the Middle East on Wednesday.

In response to a question about the assassination of Haniyeh, he said in a press conference, “We did not attack Iran from the air.”

He added, “We killed (the prominent Hezbollah leader) Fouad Shukr in Lebanon, but there was no other Israeli airstrike in the entire Middle East after that.”

However, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that technical investigations show that Haniyeh's assassination was carried out with a short-range projectile with a warhead weighing 7.5 kilograms, fired from outside the place where the martyr Haniyeh lived.

Was a third country involved in the assassination? 

Initially, an Iranian source revealed that the martyrdom of the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran "was carried out by a missile launched from one country to another, not from within Iran."

For his part, the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, confirmed that the relevant Iranian authorities are continuing "the necessary investigations to determine the dimensions and details of this incident."

Kanaani said: "There is no doubt that the pure blood of this mujahid, who spent his life in jihad and honorable struggle against the usurping Zionist entity, and on the path to liberating holy Jerusalem and liberating the Palestinian people, will not go in vain."

He added: "Haniyeh's martyrdom in Tehran will strengthen the deep and solid relations between Iran, Palestine and the resistance even more."

Western Sources' explanations

In parallel, the New York Times and the American website Axios published another story, confirming Israel's responsibility for Haniyeh's assassination, but claiming that the assassination was carried out by an explosive device planted by Mossad agents in his room, and detonated remotely.

Public Data Analasys based explanation

The competing explanations open the door to speculations given the precision and the timing of the assassination. An alternative theory based on available information that is in the public domain suggest that Israel is using the phones of associates to track the persons Israel has placed on its assassination list. Such analysis suggests that, in its recent assassinations, Israel's security forces targeted the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah by tracking the phone numbers of their companions. Because the high value targets who know that they are on the assassination list are not allowed to use mobile phones, Israel was unable to locate and assassinate them in the past. 

However, a security lapse happened after Israel assassinated the children and grandchildren of Ismail Haniyeh few months ago. Hamas sources broadcasted a video of the moment when Haniyeh received the news of the murder of his family members. In the clip, it showed him receiving the call on someone else's phone and listening to it. 

As the primary leader leading the investigation, Haniyeh used his aid's phone to keep in touch with the Qatari leaders. That number was likely used to track Haniyeh's movement.

The same strategy was replicated elsewhere, Israel stopped trying to locate the persons it wanted to assassinate directly, and focused on tracking their aids who are often in close contact with the targeted person.

This theory explains the precision and speed with which Israel carried out the recent assassination.

 Theories that suggest the use of human intelligence and agents presence on the ground cannot explain the speed and precision. The above theory is bolstered by the unusual step taken by the Israeli government limiting the use of phones by government officials, as reported in Israeli media.

Israel distributes special phones to ministers

The Israeli government has decided to distribute satellite phones to ministers and senior officials. The move aims to limit security threats and to ensure that ministers stay connected in the case of damage sustained by the regular communications network during an attack from Iran and Hezbollah. The latter explanation was opined by the media. The government did not comment.

The Maariv newspaper said: "The government is taking an unusual step, for fear that the communications networks will be damaged in an Iranian attack."

  

Media Review: The Impossible Defeat.. Why Did 2,700 Israeli Assassinations Fail to Make Israel Secure?

Media Review: The Impossible Defeat.. Why Did 2,700 Israeli Assassinations Fail to Make Israel Secure?

    Thursday, August 01, 2024   No comments

Israel often claims that it carries out assassinations to ensure Israel's security. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has carried out more assassinations than any other nation-state during the same time period. What has this strategy achieve and why? 

Many observers and experts in global affairs think that assassinations are not a strategy and should not be adopted instead of a national strategy that is necessary for nation-building. A national project cannot be dependent on one or a handful of leaders. If a state-actor relies on assassinations to secure itself, then it cements its status as a renegade entity while fostering the image of the people whose leaders it assassinates as people with legitimate claims. Israel's increased rate of assassination after achieving a stalemate at best with the Palestinians in this recent war erodes its image as a normal nation-state, which defeats the purpose: national security. Aljazeera TV provided some insight into the history and outcomes of Israel's assassinations. 

US officials to the New York Times: Ukraine most likely carried out the attack on the Kremlin carracterized by Moscow as an assassination attempt

US officials to the New York Times: Ukraine most likely carried out the attack on the Kremlin carracterized by Moscow as an assassination attempt

    Wednesday, May 24, 2023   No comments

That attack that was characterized by Moscow as an assassination attempt to kill Putin is  was likely carried out by Ukraine occirding to US officials who spoke to New York Times.

On Wednesday, The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that the Ukrainians were "most likely" to have carried out the attack that took place with rallies on the Russian presidential building (the Kremlin) on May 3.

The officials said that US intelligence reached its initial assessment through intercepted communications, and that the attack was likely orchestrated by one of Ukraine's special military or intelligence units.

They also indicated that it was not clear if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or his senior officials knew about the operation prior to its launch.

It is noteworthy that Russia had accused the United States of being behind the attack on the Kremlin, noting that it had several options for a measured and balanced response to the attack.

Russian officials also demanded the liquidation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in response to the attack.

Kiev has denied any involvement in the attack on the Kremlin, accusing Moscow of deliberately highlighting it in the media to justify any possible escalation of the conflict inside Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that efforts by Kiev and Washington to deny any responsibility for the attack on the Kremlin are completely absurd, and that decisions regarding such attacks are not taken in Ukraine, but in Washington, and Kiev implements what is asked of it.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also confirmed that there is no doubt that the Kiev regime was behind the attack, noting that the actions of the Kiev regime - which it described as "criminal" - confirm its unwillingness to settle the ongoing conflict through political and diplomatic means, threatening those responsible for the attacks with strict and inevitable punishment.

Dubai releases video of alleged assassins of Hamas official, Israel denies involvement

Dubai releases video of alleged assassins of Hamas official, Israel denies involvement

    Wednesday, February 17, 2010   No comments

 A sensational plot that resulted in the assassination of one of Hamas' officials, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh,  is creating an international crisis for a number of countries.

On Wednesday, the U.K. announced that the Israeli ambassador will be called into the Foreign Office Thursday to "share information" about the assassins' use of identities stolen from six British citizens living in Israel. Ireland, too, launched an investigation into the use of three faked Irish passports by the hit squad. At least two Palestinians linked to the case were deported from Jordan and are now in Dubai custody.

Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli's foreign minister, told Army Radio today that "there is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief." Israel’s policy on Mossad activities is generally that of ambiguity. The fact that officials denied involvement this time underscores the seriousness of the matter.

If Israel is officially implicated, it could potentially damage its relations with the U.K and other countries. This is even more critical since Mossad has used foreign passports in the past. In 1997, Mossad agents entered Jordan on Canadian passports and bungled an attempt to kill Hamas Political Bureau Chief, Khaled Mishaal with poison. The Israeli government was forced to provide the antidote. In 1987, the U.K. protested to Israel about what London called "the misuse by Israeli authorities of forged British passports."

The involvement of security agents affiliated with the Palestinian authorities could further weaken Abbas and strengthen Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinian people. Globally, this is the second high profile assassination in several months (and one of many in the past couple of years) and it may signal a new, dangerous upward trend that will encourage other regimes to carry out assassinations of political adversaries, which will weaken the rule of law.

Photo details: As shown in the collection of photos above, the suspects are, from left to right, top row, Evan Dennings of Irish nationality, Gail Folliard of Irish nationality, James Leonard Clarke of British nationality, Jonathan Louis Graham of British nationality; (From left to right, middle row) Michael Bodenheimer of German nationality, Paul John Keeley of British nationality, Michael Lawrence Barney of British nationality; (From left to right, bottom row) Peter Elvinger of French nationality, Kevin Daveron of Irish nationality, Melvyn Adam Mildiner of British nationality, Stephen Daniel Hodes of British nationality.