Not much has been left to the imagination in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19. The entire operation has unfolded on closed circuit television cameras in front of millions of viewers across the globe, just like an episode from a reality show. Pictures of the perpetrators, all 27 of them, have been plastered all over the web. Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan Tamim has on more than one occasion declared to the media that he was all but 100% certain that the hit on al-Mabhouh had all the markings of the Mossad on it. He recently said that his men had obtained the DNA of part of the members of the hit squad and vowed to resign from his post if this claim proves to be false.

"I challenge Israel to bring the suspects there in order to undergo a DNA test and compare them with the samples we have," he said in an interview to the UAE-based al-Khaleej newspaper.

"If it turns out that the results do not match, I will resign. You can lie about anything, but not about DNA," he added.

The Bayonet

The assassination of al-Mabhouh has thrown an unwanted spotlight on the workings of Mossad and its specially trained assassination team, known as a kidon, the Hebrew word for bayonet, something that the Israeli government had not bargained for when the approval to conduct such an operation came directly from the top: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Incidentally, it was also during Mr. Netanyahu's first term as prime minister in 1997 when a kidon unit of the Mossad bungled the attempted assassination of Khalid Mish'al, the current leader of Hamas, in the streets of Amman in Jordan by injecting a mysterious poison into his ear.

The Helpers

The use of forged European passports by Mossad agents entering Dubai to assassinate al-Mabhouh has kicked up a diplomatic storm in recent days. The EU issued a strong condemnation of the stolen IDs, indirectly criticizing Israel. Israeli ambassadors in Britain, Ireland, France, Australia and Germany have been called in to discuss the issue, and Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has been given an earful by many of his counterparts. But were the Israeli dual nationals whose foreign passports were allegedly forged unaware that their identities were stolen by the Mossad? Or were they acting as sayanim, the Hebrew word for helpers, whom the Mossad relies on across the globe to provide shelter, money, and logistical support... in this case identity. A sayan, singular for sayanim, must be 100% Jewish, and in many cases a dual national.

The CIA

Also, why was not a single agent out of the 27 identified to be holders of foreign passports a US passport holder?

Israel has a large number of dual-national Jewish-Americans living in the country, many of whom serve in the Israeli military and various government related jobs. Was this deliberate so as not to draw the wrath of the United States? Or was it simply that this operation was coordinated with the CIA?

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and numerous foreign press outlets have reported that two men linked to the assassination of al-Mabhouh entered the U.S. on specific dates after the killing. According to the reports, someone using an Irish passport with the name Evan Dennings entered the U.S. on Jan. 21, and someone using a British passport with the name Roy Allan Cannon entered the U.S. on Feb. 14.

A sayan in the US?

According to Dubai's Chief of Police, the MasterCards used by some of the assassins were branded by US-based Meta Bank, but issued by another small company called Payoneer. The company specializes in prepaid debit cards that can be used as credit card alternatives for online shoppers. Payoneer, which is registered in the US, has most of its employees based in Petah Tikva, Israel and is headed by Yuval Tal, who in a 2006 Fox News interview was identified as a former member of the Israeli Special Forces. Is there a relationship between Mr. Tal and the Mossad?

Many of these questions can be easily answered by the US government, but then again the term sayan has a much broader meaning when it comes to Israel and the United States.

Article first published on the Huffington Post

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"Hamas is negotiating with Israel": this is what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas confidently said to a BBC-Arabic reporter in an exclusive interview. How does he know? Abbas asserted that there are "no secrets in Israel."

If things could only be this simple in the Middle East, Mr. Abbas would have known from the get-go that the Oslo Accords were a disaster for the Palestinians, Bush's Road Map for Peace was just another road to nowhere, the Annapolis Peace Conference was dead on arrival, and Obama's promises for "change" do not mean squat when it comes to Israel.

The president of the Palestinian Authority added that the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for January will be postponed and that he would not seek a second term as president. Abbas looked frustrated...he looked like a beaten man.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government in recent days has been scrambling for yet another distraction to offer the beleaguered Palestinian Authority president: an interim accord that would include a Palestinian state with provisional borders. This way he'll have a quasi-state with temporary borders to show for all the endless negotiations. What a brilliant idea!

The reasoning behind this brilliant idea is that it would remove contentious issues that have prevented an agreement in the past, such as the Palestinian refugee issue and Jerusalem, from the negotiating table. No big deal, really!

This is starting to sound like another chapter from One Thousand and One Nights.

In another development, the Israeli government has recently approved the construction of 900 new housing units in Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood built on lands captured by Israel in 1967. The announcement has caused an uproar in the international community and has drawn sharp criticism and "dismay" from the White House.

And yet another brilliant idea: according to the Jerusalem Post, in an attempt to lure the PA back to the negotiating table, in private discussions, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear he was prepared for a moratorium on new settlement construction, as long as it did not include Jerusalem and did not preclude construction of public buildings needed for normal life in the settlements.

Translated, this means construction will continue as usual in E. Jerusalem along with expanding current Israeli settlements.

Meanwhile, with all this happening, media reports have been surfacing that a final deal has been reached for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Some Arab media outlets have been reporting that Shalit might be released as early as the Muslim Eid holiday in exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners. Should this happen, it will be a major victory for Hamas and another blow to Abbas.

Last month Hamas handed Israel a video of Shalit in exchange for 20 female Palestinian prisoners, something that was widely seen as a major victory for the organization by many Palestinians.

According to a poll published in Haaretz, 57 percent of Israelis support the idea of talking with Hamas. The poll was taken in the wake of a statement by former defense minister Shaul Mofaz, who last week unveiled a plan that includes negotiations with Hamas and an interim Palestinian state on 60 percent of the West Bank in a year.

"If Hamas would be elected and would want to negotiate and accept the Quartet's conditions, from that moment, it is no longer Hamas," said Mr. Mofaz. He also added: "Responsible leadership in Israel would sit with those who changed their agenda."

So if Hamas is no longer Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority is no longer an authority, what options do the Palestinians have?

To be continued on another night...

**This article was published on the Huffington Post

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It’s been over a month since the Goldstone Report was published on September 15, 2009. I’ve written about this topic in the Huffington Post, and since then a myriad of reactions and repercussions to the release of the report have occurred. We’ve learned for example that there was a conspiracy by the Palestinian Authority to prevent the report from being submitted to the UN, and that the Israeli government was preparing itself to fight war crimes trials. Just today, an article in Haaretz addressed this very thing:

“The prospect that Israeli officials could face war crimes trials abroad led the political-security cabinet on Tuesday to form a committee to deal with the international legal consequences of the Goldstone Commission's report on the Gaza war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised a lengthy battle to "delegitimize" the findings of the United Nations commission, also instructed government officials to draft proposals for changing international laws of war.”

The coverage of the story has been all over the place – starting in Israel, where the lead investigator Richard Goldstone has been accused of anti-Semitism and of being out to get Israel, even though Mr. Goldstone is a South African Jew. Arab media has been celebrating the report and neglecting to mention that Hamas was also held accountable.

Last Friday, Al Jazeera’s Listening Post aired a report exploring the 575-page hot potato-  causing controversy with the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and the global media. I was invited to contribute my two cents…the saga continues.

UN resolutions, the Oslo Agreement, and negotiations over Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 have all been replaced by buzzwords, such as, "settlement freeze" and "confidence-building measures." Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has skillfully managed to get the international community spinning its wheels over issues that have been dealt with decades ago. During a recent press conference with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor has urged Israel to stop settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories and resume the Middle East peace process.

"I made clear that the Federal Republic of Germany believes that progress on the issue of settlement building, a stop to settlement building, is an important building block and a condition for re-launching the Middle East peace process," she said...

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If you want to know what the mindset of the Israeli government is, you need to read this interview. Mr. Arad is the chief security advisor of Mr. Netanyahu.

It is very clear that we are going back one full decade in the mindset of the Israelis. There is a total breakdown of any faith that the Middle East might change. Threats and suspicion are the most popular currency, feeding the tunnel vision of non-dialog. As you might say, not much has changed, and the Tribal and Identity politics continue being the trend.

The tribalism of the Middle East is so deeply ingrained, that it is practically part of the landscape. The Chamula (extended family) comes first, then the religion, and then the territory.

There is no wish to join the global community, or the global commons. Arabs and Jews alike find in the tribal fire a warm secluded place to get cozy. The world out there is too edgy and technical, and fraught with unknown dangers. No positive value in the all-embracing view of interdependence.

The Middle East needs to break out of this biblical mentality, that the world is only as important as the next water well, or the honor of your tribe.

I think 5000 years is enough…. ?

Although Syria boasts that it has always wanted a comprehensive peace with Israel that includes the Palestinians, I think that Damascus is more than willing to go the route that Jordan and Egypt took, which means that the Palestinians will again be left out of the peace loop. I do think that it takes right-wing Israeli  governments to make peace with the Arabs, which unfortunately comes at the cost of Palestinian lives and misery.

Do you think that Obama will be able to broker a peace between Netanyahu and Assad? Where do you think Netanyahu will take Israel?