The Consequences of 'Bogie' Killing Abu Jihad
“Show of Force” was a successful Israeli operation killing Fatah Military Chief Abu Jihad, but did it not also kill a potential peace partner?
Top Fatah activist Khalil al-Wazir, aka Abu Jihad, was assassinated by Israel exactly 25 years and one month ago. On Monday [May 27] the investigative program Uvda on Israel’s Channel 2 (the most popular channel in Israel) aired a fascinating documentary that recreated the assassination. It's still considered one of the country’s most epic commando operations, long since inscribed in the nation’s collective DNA as an iconic representation of what is deemed here, “the long arm of the IDF,” which knows how to settle bloody accounts with the Jewish state’s worst enemies, no matter where they're hiding. Uvda is the Israeli equivalent of 60 Minutes, and the show was this season’s finale.
Officially, Israel has not taken credit for the assassination of Abu Jihad until now. Credit for the operation could only be given to the Matkal Commando Unit and the Naval Commandos, the IDF’s two finest units, by citing “foreign publications.” What happened that the Israeli censors suddenly decided to lift the ban, and many senior Israeli officials faced the cameras to quarrel over who deserves the glory for something that happened so long ago? Why now, when US Secretary of State John Kerry is still working up a sweat running around the region, so that he can soon present Israel and the Palestinians with a proposal to restart the diplomatic process that they cannot, and should not, turn down?
There are a few versions as to why. First of all, it could just be a coincidence. When push comes to shove, most conspiracies in Israel turn out to be the result of poor management. Secondly, it could well be that the time has come for Defense Minister Moshe ''Bogie'' Yaalon to bolster his status as the country’s new “No. 1 Soldier.” Now that he has entered former Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s shoes, he also deserves a little bit of glory. Yaalon does not appear in the film’s interview segments. He doesn’t speak, so he doesn’t describe what happened there.
Nevertheless, his picture from those days embellishes just about every segment of the broadcast, and his steady, confident voice over the radio offers one of the film’s clearest narratives. As usual, the main suspect is Barak, who always knew how to use state secrets to promote himself. But the truth is that it doesn’t really matter. The world knew that Israel assassinated Abu Jihad from the very first moment, and it seems to me that Abu Jihad knew it too in that split second in which he stood facing his masked executioners.
