By Khalid Amayreh

PIC, Al-Jazeerah, ccun.org, February 22, 2010

The murderous assassination by the Mossad of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai a month ago confirms and reasserts the criminal nature of the Israeli state. The criminal act, however, shouldn’t surprise Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular, even though it might raise some eyebrows in some corners around the world.

We know too well that Israel is a murderous state ruled by a Nazi-like clique of veteran war criminals, irrespective of their titles and ranks.  Murder and terror have always formed the Israeli political discourse from day-1. Indeed, there is an umbilical relationship between Israel and criminality. This relationship has been affirmed and reaffirmed time after time after time. Hence, it would be strikingly naïve to even imagine that Israel would one day change the color of its skin.

Having said that, I believe that the latest murder in Dubai should remind us of some of the fundamental principles pertaining to this long conflict with this nefarious entity.

First, the resistance movements should re-assert their  deterrence vis-à-vis the Zionist regime. True, for certain objective reasons, we can’t expect organizations such as Hamas to respond militarily to every Israeli crime. That is obviously beyond Hamas’s ability. Hamas, after all is a relatively small resistance group whose main strategy is to make the continued occupation of our homeland as costly to the occupier as possible. However, Hamas and other resistance movements should strive as much as possible to create and maintain a semblance of deterrence in order to force the insolent Zionists to think twice before embarking on the next murderous assassination.

This effort shouldn’t be confined to military resistance. Political and diplomatic efforts can be as effective in deterring the Zionists. For example, the failure of the Mossad to murder Khaled Mesha'al in Amman nearly 12 years ago made the Israeli government refrain from carrying out assassinations within Jordanian territory. I am not suggesting that Israel is not deploying Mossad agents in Jordan, obviously there are many. However, ever since that botched attempt, the Mossad has more or less behaved itself, very much thanks to the exemplary manner in which the late King Hussein reacted to the failed murderous terrorist act.

Egypt, despite all its subservience to the US and Israel, has also been following an uncompromising policy vis-à-vis Mossad operations on Egyptian soil, which is one of the few positive elements which the Mubarak regime can be given credit for.

This is why it is imperative that Hamas should urge all Arab countries that have some relations with the Zionist regime to have a zero-tolerance policy toward Israeli intelligence infiltration into their territories.

Indeed, hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims are now waiting to see what measures the United Arab Emirates, especially Dubai, will take in order to ensure that no further Mossad operations will be carried out on their soil. The ball is now in Dubai’s court, whether we like it or not, because inaction would embolden Israel to repeat the crime.

Second, we must remind ourselves again and again that the conflict with Zionism is of a comprehensive nature that encompasses every sphere of life. Hence, we must continue to empower ourselves as an Umma. I say as an Umma because the issue of Palestine is not only a Palestinian issue. It is an Arab-Muslim issue which implies that all Muslims ought to be involved in the enduring battle for Palestine.

This battle will continue to rage for many more years until the Zionist regime faces its ultimate demise. This requires that we maintain an enduring vigor and ability to adapt to and withstand the vicissitudes of the conflict till the very end.  In this historical equation, every positive effort counts, whether it is an anti-Zionist demonstration in Madrid or a BBC TV show exposing the Nazi-like behaviors of the Zionist state. Ultimately, the cumulative effect will make the difference.

Third, it is extremely important that every educated Palestinian, Arab and Muslim, who knows foreign languages, especially English and French, should contribute with time and energy in the battle for the world public opinion.

We must do every conceivable effort to expose Judeo-Nazism which Israel embodies. We must expose the brutal ugliness of their collective mindset, we must expose the striking similarity between Israel and Nazi Germany. We must try as hard as possible to convince the peoples of the world that Israel itself is a crime against humanity. We must convince the world that Israel doesn’t want peace, that Israel and peace are actually a contradiction in terms.

And we can do all of this by providing irrefutable facts much of which can be obtained from the Israeli media itself. In short, we must not allow them to use lies and hasbara to blur or obliterate the truth about what is happening in occupied Palestine. Our ultimate message to the world is that the world must show the same determination in confronting Israel that it showed in confronting Nazi Germany several decades ago.

I believe that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims should utilize some of their best brains in order to expose Israel’s ugly face, because if we succeed in realizing this task, our job to achieve justice and peace will be made easier.  Interestingly, what we are doing now remains within the mediocre sphere and falls far below what we can do.

The Zionists were able to control the Western public opinion through effective organization and meticulous planning. They were able to change the black into white, the big lie into a “truth” glorified by thousands of misled and duped Europeans and North Americans, and Israel, a decidedly criminal, fascist state by all standards of thinking into “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

We can emulate Israel, not in disseminating lies and misleading people, but in challenging humanity to deal honestly and objectively with the plight of a people who are being slowly annihilated by the Nazis of our time.

Eventually, Israel, like all criminals, will be sterile from within as it is brought face to face with its satanic reality. This is not going to happen tomorrow, but it will happen sooner or later.

Our job, as free-minded people determined to make right prevail over might, is to expedite this goal and accelerate its realization.

As to Al-Mabhouh, he, as the Qur'an says in Surat Al-Qamar, Verses 54-55,  is in the midst of Gardens and Rivers, sitting in an Assembly of Truth, in the Presence of a Sovereign Omnipotent God.

His death will be a curse haunting his killers as long as they shall live. And when they die, hellfire will be their ultimate abode.