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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri05292009.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri05292009.html<br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">May 29-31,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Who Killed Rafiq
Hariri? <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Spies, Lies and Mr. Lebanon's Demise
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By RANNIE
AMIRI <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd><font face="Verdana" size=2>“There are agents, like Mahmoud Rafea,
who confessed to have delivered bags with explosives. Other collaborators
have confessed to have carried out field reconnaissance missions. Others
have facilitated the entrance and exit of Israelis after accomplishing
their missions. This is what is meant by executive agents. The door must
be opened wide ... this Israeli path should be scrutinized so as to reach
a place where we would find information about many crimes, particularly
2005 onwards.”<br><br>
<dd>– Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, commenting on the recent spate of Israeli
spy arrests during a rally marking the ninth anniversary of the removal
of Israeli troops from Lebanon, 22 May 2009.<br><br>
</font>
</dl><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">I</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>srael suffered two defeats in Lebanon, and
both were against Hezbollah. The first occurred in May 2000 when Israeli
troops were expelled (or withdrew, depending on which side of the border
you are on) from southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation. The second
was the premeditated yet disastrous 34-day war waged in the summer of
2006. It may have succeeded in ravaging Lebanon but it certainly did not
vanquish Hezbollah. They fought the mighty Israel Defense Forces to a
draw, and in the minds of many this itself constituted victory.<br><br>
Israel has neither forgiven nor forgotten these losses. For them, the war
against Lebanon and Hezbollah did not end in 2000 or in 2006 but
continues today, albeit in different form. And events of the past several
weeks revealed exactly what Israel has been up to.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Spies<br><br>
</b></font>There have always been Lebanese nationals acting as spies for
Israel, but this should come as no surprise. They fought on their behalf
for two decades after all, as members of the now-defunct South Lebanon
Army during the occupation of the south. <br><br>
Although initially receiving little attention, a crackdown on these spy
networks began late last year. Rapid advances in breaking them have
evidently occurred, as dozens of suspects have been taken into custody
since April.<br><br>
“If the Lebanese authorities say they have caught Israeli spies, there's
a high likelihood that it's true,” said Shlomo Brom, former chief of
strategic planning for the Israeli military.<br><br>
The Lebanese government is currently holding 30 suspects and has already
charged 21 with spying for Israel in an ever-widening investigation.
Those detained include an army colonel, a retired general, a deputy
mayor, a truck driver and a mobile phone salesman, which two managed to
escape across the border into Israel before being caught. Confiscated
high-tech equipment and electronics used to transmit information to the
Mossad were put on display by Lebanese Internal Security
afterward.<br><br>
Because intelligence provided by certain agents may have led to increased
destruction in the 2006 war (which killed 1,200 Lebanese, the vast
majority civilians), Nasrallah demanded the death penalty be levied
against those found to be complicit. As he declared in his speech on
“Resistance and Liberation Day”:<br><br>
“I ask on your behalf and on behalf of the families of the martyrs and
the wounded, on behalf of those whose homes were demolished and those who
paid taxes to rebuild their infrastructure, I demand that the
collaborators who provided the enemy with the data that had caused all of
this, be sentenced to death.”<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Lies <br><br>
</b></font>In the midst of unraveling and dismantling these espionage
rings operating in Lebanon, a report penned by Erich Follath surfaced in
the sensationalist, pro-Israel German weekly Der Spiegel</i> implicating
Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The
allegation was immediately dismissed by Hezbollah who claimed it was
simply an attempt to sully its image prior to the upcoming June
parliamentary elections as well as sow discord between Sunnis and
Shias.<br><br>
But does it have any merit? <br><br>
Not a single piece of credible evidence was presented to substantiate
Follath’s claim. No sources were named, no documents were produced and
the Special Tribunal for Lebanon charged with investigating the Hariri
assassination denied ever coming to those conclusions (yet alone
discussing them with Follath).<br><br>
“We don't know where the Der Spiegel</i> magazine did get their
information from and we don't know where they brought this story from. No
one in the prosecutor's office has spoken to the German magazine about
anything,” said the spokeswoman for the Tribunal. <br><br>
According to Nasrallah, “The Israelis and the Americans wondered how to
scuttle the election and influence its outcome. Der Spiegel</i> was their
answer.” <br><br>
The case against Hezbollah is not only flimsy, but one likely fabricated
by the author’s anonymous “sources.” It was discounted or simply ignored
in Lebanon, even by Hezbollah’s opponents; Saad Hariri refused comment
and Walid Jumblatt cautioned it may “derail justice.”<br><br>
Readers are referred to the trenchant reporting of Dr. Franklin Lamb who
clearly exposed the gaping holes in, and unanswered questions of,
Follath’s article.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">‘Mr. Lebanon’<br><br>
</b></font>It is important to appreciate that the killing of “Mr.
Lebanon” in February 2005 shook the country and ultimately led to the
creation of the opposing
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri05012009.html">March 8 and
March 14 Alliances</a>. It sharply divided Lebanese along sectarian lines
and led to mutual recriminations and prolonged political
paralysis.<br><br>
The confluence of the aforementioned events – discovering the extent of
Israeli spy networks in Lebanon, followed by publication of the Der
Spiegel</i> article two weeks prior to crucial elections accusing
Hezbollah of ordering the hit on Hariri – is no coincidence. <br><br>
So how do they relate to one another?<br><br>
Nasrallah stated it candidly:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“The Israelis are acting preemptively before it is discovered that
their spy networks were involved in assassinations in Lebanon.” <br><br>
</dl>Could it be that information fed from Israel to a friendly German
periodical was done not just to foment Sunni-Shia tension prior to the
June election or divert attention away from an imploding espionage ring,
but to obfuscate Israel’s role in Hariri’s murder (which may be disclosed
by their captured spies)?<br><br>
Unlike his son Saad today, Rafiq Hariri had good personal relations with
Nasrallah and Hezbollah generally – facts Follath conveniently overlooked
– making their participation in his murder especially unlikely. <br><br>
But, division and destabilization in Lebanon works to Israel’s advantage,
and instigating political disorder and civil turmoil has always been its
modus operandi</i>. Indeed, the fallout from Hariri’s assassination
nearly sparked another civil war. <br><br>
Should Israel be implicated in his death however, all of Lebanon’s
political parties and confessional groups would unite against them in an
instant.<br><br>
The cases of four pro-Syrian generals thought to be involved in the crime
and held for four years without charge were recently dismissed by the
Special Tribunal due to lack of evidence and recanted witness testimony.
When it becomes clear the case against Hezbollah is likewise without
merit and Israeli espionage rings operating in Lebanon are fully exposed,
the Special Tribunal should waste no time in investigating Israel for its
possible involvement in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq
Hariri.<br><br>
Rannie Amiri</b> is an independent Middle East commentator. He may be
reached at: rbamiri AT yahoo DOT com.<br><br>
<br><br>
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