During the second intifada, Yasser Arafat was a master of denying any links to terror attacks thanks to the layers of “bureaucracy” between him, Fatah, and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. But in the end, a cache of seized documents confirmed that he authorized and funded a lot of murderous mayhem without being involved in the specifics of the planning.
I’m feeling deja vu regarding the plausible deniability of Hamas leaders with the June kidnapping of three Israeli teens. The people who kidnapped the boys were members of Hamas, incited by Hamas, and financed by Hamas. The indicted mastermind, Hussam Qawasmeh, confirmed all this.
The issue of how directly involved the Hamas leadership was in the planning is of little interest to most Israelis.
Why?
The Hamas leaders proudly confirmed that their operatives were responsible for the grisly triple-murder. Sheikh Saleh Arouri “blessed the heroic action” of the kidnappers. And Khaled Mashaal said Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach were “aggressors” who got what all settlers deserve.
No regret or remorse — not that I expected any lip service to that.
The issue isn’t what Mashaal knew and when he knew it. The kidnapping may have caught the Hamas brass by surprise. But they’re not treating Qawasmeh as a loose cannon or the murders as a rogue operation. So why should Israel? Or the media? Or anyone else?
And yet Buzzfeed’s Sheera Frenkel dumbs down a nuanced New York Times report to this:
Frenkel’s taking us back to 2002, when terror attacks were typically attributed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which was, in Big Mediaspeak, “loosely connected” to Fatah, and rarely, if ever, tied to Arafat.
By the time IDF had Arafat surrounded in his Ramallah compound, many Westerners didn’t understand how all the dots connected back to the man in the Muqata. In the end, PLO documents seized from the Ramallah compound proved to be the smoking gun tying Arafat to the violence.
The Times writes:
The precise nature of the Hamas connection is significant because the kidnapping and killing of the three teenagers — Eyal Yifrach, 19, and Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel, both 16 — convulsed Israel and the occupied territories in ways that hardened the positions of both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Indeed. Israel’s still trying to convince Mahmoud Abbas to sever the PA’s ties to Hamas over the kidnapping. (Abbas is cracking down today.)
The Times continued:
Another senior Israeli government official argued that it was fair to blame Hamas, as an organization, for the kidnappings.
“These people in Hebron are known Hamas activists, and it is clear that Hamas leaders have called on their people to carry out ut kidnappings — that was the message coming from the leadership,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be able to discuss intelligence and security issues. “And it is still possible that we will find evidence of a direct connection,” he added.
Frenkel will have a hard time untangling herself from this thin spin. She was the first to report the lone wolf angle in July.
Arafat was much better at the deniability game. But at least we know where we stand with Hamas.
Image: CC BY-SA HonestReporting, flickr/Elena
