Rafik al-Hariri with his wife Nazek

We can only conclude that there must be some kind of agreement between world nations that, even when it is patantly obvious, one nation will never expose the activities of anothers' intelligence agency. What other reason can there be for the fact that Iran and Syria were the only two countries to even hint at Israel as being behind the murder of Rafik Hariri on Valentine's day 2005?

Indeed, one of the strongest indications of an Israeli involvement in the murder of Hariri is the fact that not ONE mainstream news source is even mentioning the possibility of Israeli involvement, when it is painfully clear that Israel has the most to gain from his death. But then again, we have become accustomed to the severe lack of intestinal fortitude or any real journalistic integrity on the part of the mainstream media. And also to the fact that much of the Western press is dominated by Israeli sympathisers and/or "Zionists".

To his credit, French President Chirac, perhaps going as far as protocol permitted, held off from immediately implicating any particular group in the murder of his close friend and called for "an immediate international investigation to uncover the real culprits". Coming as it did at the same time as the US government's attempts to force the blame on Syria, Chirac's comment perhaps provides the strongest evidence that Syria was NOT involved. Of course, we don't need the subtle innuendo of any government leader to realise that, while Syria may have stood to gain from the untimely demise of Hariri, it had much more to loose.

This fact however did not stop so-called "journalists" in the mainstream media from sounding off in all directions. An example of the faulty logic used by such pundits is provided by analyst Jean-Pierre Perrin writing in the French daily "Liberation" the day after the assassination of Hariri. Perrin claimed that Chirac's call for an international enquiry to identify the killers was "a way of casting doubt over any Lebanese-Syrian enquiry" and showed Paris also suspects Damascus. Yet surely if Chirac really suspected Syria, he would have said nothing and allowed Syria's accusers to prevail, or added his own voice to the chorus already calling for Syrian "blood". Yet we see that he did exactly the opposite and in doing so made clear his opinion that Syria was NOT to blame.

Most readers will be aware that, over the past few years, the US and Israel have been making loud and repeated claims that Syria is "funding Palestinian and Iraqi terrorism". There have also been growing signs that, if the US and Israel can fabricate enough "evidence", Syria may well be the next stop in the "war on terror". It is also public knowledge that Hariri had resigned as Prime Minister last year over Syrian meddling in Lebanese government affairs and was in favor of a withdrawal of the 14,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon (although he had never openly criticised the Syrian government.) Given these facts, is it really reasonable to believe that Syria would publically assassinate Hariri and, in the process, provide the US and Israel with much needed justification to continue their imperial rampage through the Middle East?

While Hariri might have been quietly pressuring Syria for the ultimate removal of it's troops, he was also well aware of the reason for those troops - to dissuade Israel from staging another invasion of Lebanese territory. Having manipulated Lebanese and world opinion into believing that Syria killed Hariri and with the withdrawal of Syrian troops already under way, Lebanon and its people will once more be exposed to the predations of the butcher Sharon.

From the moment of its creation by Western diplomats in the aftermath of WW I, the potential for religious and ethnic conflict was seemingly built into the very fabric of Lebanese society. Under the gerrymandered borders drawn up by the League of Nations in 1920, extremist Maronite Christians made up 54% of the population with Arabs comprising the remainder, giving the Maronites a controlling stake in the newly formed Lebanese government. Within 40 years however, Arabs had outnumbered Christians and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees had been forced out of Palestine into Lebanon after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. In an attempt to maintain control the Lebanese 'Phalange' was formed, an extremist political and military force of the Christian Maronites in Lebanon. The Phalangists' unbending right-wing policies, their resistance to the introduction of fully democratic institutions and to the very idea of Arab nationalism made them natural allies of Israel.

Almost inevitably, civil war between the Arab Lebanese and the Phalangists finally broke out in 1975, with more than a little help from Israel. In 1982, under the pretext of curbing attacks on Israeli troops by the Palestinian PLO in Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the Israeli army to invade. In a weeklong orgy of bloodletting, then Defence Minister and current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered his troops to encircle the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila giving the Maronite Phalangists free reign to murder at will. Figures vary, but somewhere between 1,700 and 3,000 Palestinians, most of them innocent civlians, were mercilessly butchered in response to the murder of Israeli-backed Christian Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel.

When a horrified world demanded an explanation of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who himself had committed indiscriminate terror in his youth, he said without a word of regret: "Goyim kill Goyim and they blame the Jew."

Despite Israel's denials of responsibility, New York Times correspondent Thomas L. Friedman declared without qualification: "The Israelis knew just what they were doing when they let the Phalangists into those camps."

Sharon and seven other Israeli officials, including Begin, were found guilty the next year by an Israeli commission of "indirect responsibility" for the massacres. Sharon was also found to have "personal responsibility," and he was ordered to resign or be removed as defense minister. Sharon resigned, protesting his innocence, but he was allowed to stay in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.

The union of the Christian Lebanese and the Israelis has indeed been a long and sordid one and it should come as no surprise that current Lebanese Christian politicians have been quick to join the US and Israel in immediately asserting that Syria was to blame for the murder of Hariri.

By all accounts, Hariri was one of the few "men of peace" left in the Middle East. In his two terms as Lebanese PM since 1990, he had brought Lebanon out of the carnage wrought by 15 years of civil war and set it well on the way to reclaiming its status as the "Paris of the Middle East." Hariri willingly expended his personal fortune on Lebanon's recovery pouring millions into the reconstruction of Beirut. Viewed as a leading Arab-world reformer, he was also credited with restoring Lebanon's reputation abroad as a liberal, open Middle Eastern country. He paid for the 1989 Christian-Muslim peace conference in Taif, Saudi Arabia, which laid the foundation for the ceasefire that came a year later. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Harari also made it his goal to ensure that the religious divisions (Christian and Islamic) were kept out of politics.

When you think of Israel, what are the first thoughts that come to mind? Belagured? Threatened? Only democracy in the Middle East? A vanguard for Western Democracy in its battle to stem the tide of rampant Arab terrorism? Rightful homeland of all "Jews"? If these thoughts come to mind when you think of the state of Israel, then the IDF and/or the Mossad have an opening you might be interested in. My point is that Israel, in its current incarnation as an illegal and ultimately untenable statelet, far from seeking the eradication of "terrorism", finds itself in the paradoxical postion of NEEDING a permanent threat to its existence in order for it to continue to exist and expand its borders into Arab lands.

Which is where the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad comes in.

Mossad's motto is "by way of deception thou shalt wage war" and all of the evidence points to their taking their motto absolutely literally. Over the years, Mossad has worked tirelessly to further the 'interests' of Israel and has made extensive use of False Flag operations to create the appearance that Israel is surrounded by terrorist regimes. From the demonisation of Saddam leading up to the first Gulf War, to the 9/11 attacks, nothing, it seems, is a bridge too far for the world's most ruthless and bloodthirsty intelligence agency.

From ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky's book "The Other Side of Deception":

The Mossad realized that it had to come up with a new threat to the region, a threat of such magnitude that it would justify whatever action the Mossad might see fit to take.

The right-wing elements in the Mossad (and in the whole country, for that matter) had what they regarded as a sound philosophy: They believed (correctly, as it happened) that Israel was the strongest military presence in the Middle East. In fact, they believed that the military might of what had become known as "fortress Israel" was greater than that of all of the Arab armies combined, and was responsible for whatever security Israel possessed. The right wing believed then - and they still believe - that this strength arises from the need to answer the constant threat of war.

The corollary belief was that peace overtures would inevitably start a process of corrosion that would weaken the military and eventually bring about the demise of the state of Israel, since, the philosophy goes, its Arab neighbors are untrustworthy, and no treaty signed by them is worth the paper it's written on.

Supporting the radical elements of Muslim fundamentalism sat well with the Mossad's general plan for the region. An Arab world run by fundamentalists would not be a party to any negotiations with the West, thus leaving Israel again as the only democratic, rational country in the region. And if the Mossad could arrange for the Hamas (Palestinian fundamentalists) to take over the Palestinian streets from the PLO, then the picture would be complete.

The Mossad regarded Saddam Hussein as their biggest asset in the area, since he was totally irrational as far as international politics was concerned, and was therefore all the more likely to make a stupid move that the Mossad could take advantage of.

What the Mossad really feared was that Iraq's gigantic army, which had survived the Iran-Iraq war and was being supplied by the West and financed by Saudi Arabia, would fall into the hands of a leader who might be more palatable to the West and still be a threat to Israel.

The first step was taken in November 1988, when the Mossad told the Israeli foreign office to stop all talks with the Iraqis regarding a peace front. At that time, secret negotiations were taking place between Israelis, Jordanians, and Iraqis under the auspices of the Egyptians and with the blessings of the French and the Americans. The Mossad manipulated it so that Iraq looked as if it were the only country unwilling to talk, thereby convincing the Americans that Iraq had a different agenda.

By January 1989, the Mossad LAP machine was busy portraying Saddam as a tyrant and a danger to the world. The Mossad activated every asset it had, in every place possible, from volunteer agents in Amnesty International to fully bought members of the U.S. Congress. Saddam had been killing his own people, the cry went; what could his enemies expect? The gruesome photos of dead Kurdish mothers clutching their dead babies after a gas attack by Saddam's army were real, and the acts were horrendous. But the Kurds were entangled in an all-out guerrilla war with the regime in Baghdad and had been supported for years by the Mossad, who sent arms and advisers to the mountain camps of the Barazany family; this attack by the Iraqis could hardly be called an attack on their own people. But, as Uri said to me, once the orchestra starts to play, all you can do is hum along.

The media was supplied with inside information and tips from reliable sources on how the crazed leader of Iraq killed people with his bare hands and used missiles to attack Iranian cities. What they neglected to tell the media was that most of the targeting for the missiles was done by the Mossad with the help of American satellites. The Mossad was grooming Saddam for a fall, but not his own. They wanted the Americans to do the work of destroying that gigantic army in the Iraqi desert so that Israel would not have to face it one day on its own border. That in itself was a noble cause for an Israeli, but to endanger the world with the possibility of global war and the deaths of thousands of Americans was sheer madness.

The previous august (1989) a contingent of the Maktal (Mossad reconnaissance unit) and several naval commandos had headed up the Euphrates, their target was an explosives factory located in the city of Al-Iskandariah. Information the Mossad had received from American intelligence revealed that every thursday a small convoy of trucks came to the complex to be loaded with explosives for the purpose of manufacturing cannon shells. The objective was to take position near the base on Wednesday August 23rd and wait until the next day when the trucks would be loaded. At that point, several sharpshooters would fire one round each of an explosive bullet at a designated truck while they were in the process of loading, so that there would be a carry on explosion into the storage facility.

The operation was quite successful and the explosion generated the sort of publicity the Mossad was hoping for in attracting attention to Saddam's constant efforts at building a gigantic and powerful military arsenal. The Mossad shared its "findings" with the Western intelligence agencies and leaked the story of the explosion to the press.

Since this was a guarded facility Western reporters had minimal access to it. However, at the beginning of September, the Iraqis were inviting Western media people to visit Iraq and see the rebuilding that had taken place after the [Iran-Iraq] war, and the Mossad saw an opportunity to conduct a damage assessment.

A man calling himself Michel Rubiyer saying he was working for the French newspaper "le figaro", approached Farzad Bazoft, a thirty one year old reporter freelancing for the British newspaper the Observer. Rubiyer was in fact Michel M. a Mossad agent.

Michel told Farzad that he would pay him handsomely and print his story if he would join a group of journalists heading for Baghdad. The reason he gave for not going himself was that he had been black-listed in Iraq. He pointed out the Bazoft could use the money and the break especially with his criminal background. Michel told the stunned reporter that he knew of his arrest in 1981 for armed robbery in Northhampton England. Along with the implied threat he told Bazoft that he would be able to print his story in the Observer as well.

Michel told Bazoft to collect information regarding the explosion ask questions about it get sketches of the area and collect earth samples. He told the worried reporter that Saddam would not dare harm a reporter even if he was unhappy with him. The worst the Saddam would do was kick him out of the country, which would in itself make him famous.

Why this particular reporter? He was of Iranian background and would make punishing him much easier for the Iraqis and he wasn't a European whom they would probably only hold and then kick out. In fact, Bazoft had been identified in a Mossad search that was triggered by his prying into another Mossad case in search of a story involving an ex-Mossad asset Dr Cyrus Hashemi who was eliminated by mossad in 1986. Since Bazoft had already stumbled on too much information for his own good - or the Mossad's for that matter - he was the perfect candidate for this job of snooping in forbidden areas.

Bazoft made his way to the location as he was asked and as might be expected was arrested. Tragically, his British girlfriend, a nurse working in a baghdad hospital was arrested as well.

Within a few days of his arrest, a Mossad liaison in the US called the Iraqi representative in Holland and said that Jerusalem was willing to make a deal for the release of their man who had been captured. the Iraqi representative asked for time to contact Baghdad, and the liaison called the next day, at which point he told the Iraqi representative it was all a big mistake and severed contact. Now the Iraqis had no doubt that they had a real spy on their hands, and they were going to see him hang. All the Mossad had to do was sit back and watch as Saddam proved to the world what a monster he really was.

On March 15th 1990 Farzad Bazoft, who had been held in the Abu Gharib prison met briefly with the British Ambassador to Iraq.

A few minutes after the meeting he was hanged.

The world was shocked, but the Mossad was not done yet. To fan the flames generated by the brutal hanging, a Mossad sayan in New York delivered a set of documents to ABC television with a story from a reliable Middle Eastern source telling if a plant Saddam had for the manufacturing of uranium. The information was convincing and the photos and sketches were even more so.

It was time to draw attention to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

Only three months before, on December 5, 1989, the Iraqis had launched the Al-Abid, a three-stage ballistic missile. The Iraqis claimed it was a satellite launcher that Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist, was helping them develop. Israeli intelligence knew that the launch, although trumpeted as a great success, was in fact a total failure, and that the program would never reach its goals. But that secret was not shared with the media. On the contrary, the missile launch was exaggerated and blown out of proportion.

The message that Israeli intelligence sent out was this: Now all the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together. This maniac is developing a nuclear capability (remember the Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981) and pursuing chemical warfare (as seen in his attacks on his own people, the Kurds). What's more, he despises the Western media, regarding them as Israeli spies. Quite soon, he's going to have the ability to launch a missile from anywhere in Iraq to anywhere he wants in the Middle East and beyond.

After the arrest of Bazoft, Gerald Bull, who was working on the Iraqi big gun project called Babylon, was visited by Israeli friends from his past. The visitors (two Mossad officers) had come to deliver a warning. They were both known to Bull as members of the Israeli intelligence community. The Mossad psychological department had studied the position Bull was in and analysed what was known about his character. It arrived at the conclusion that, even if threatened, he wouldn't pull out of the program but would instead carry on his work with very little regard for his personal safety.

Ultimately, Bull's continuing with the program would play right into the Mossad's hands. Through the bullet riddled body of Gerald Bull the world would be made to focus on his work: the Iraqi giant gun project. The timing had to be right though; Bull's well publicised demise had to come right after an act of terror by the Baghdad regime, an act that could not be mistaken for an accident or a provocation. The hanging of the Observer reporter on March 15 was such an act.

After the reporter's execution in Baghdad, a Kidon (Mossad assassination) team arrived in Brussels and cased the apartment building where Bull lived. It was imperative that the job be done in a place where it would not be mistaken for a robbery or an accident. At the same time, an escape route was prepared for the team and some old contacts in the Belgian police were revived to make sure they were on duty at the time of Bull's elimination so that, if there was a need to call on a friendly police force, they'd be on call. They weren't old of the reason for the alert, but would learn later and keep silent.

When Bull reached the building at 8.30pm, the man watching the entrance signaled the man in the empty apartment on the sixth floor (Bull's floor) to get ready: the target had entered the building. The shooter then left the apartment and hid in an alcove.

Almost immediately after the elevator door closed behind Bull, the shooter fired point blank at the man's back and head. The shooter then walked over to Bull and pulled out of his tote bag a handful of documents and other papers, which he paced in a paper shopping bag he had with him. He also collected all the casings from the floor and dropped the gun into the shopping bag.

In the following weeks, more and more discoveries were made regarding the big gun and other elements of the Saddam war machine. The Mossad had all but saturated the intelligence field with information regarding the evil intentions of Saddam the Terrible, banking on the fact that before long, he'd have enough rope to hang himself.

It was very clear what the Mossad's overall goal was. It wanted the West to do its bidding, just as the Americans had in Libya with the bombing of Qadhafi. After all, Israel didn't possess carriers and ample air power, and although it was capable of bombing a refugee camp in Tunis, that was not the same. The Mossad leaders knew that if they could make Saddam appear bad enough and a threat to the Gulf oil supply, of which he'd been the protector up to that point, then the United States and its allies would not let him get away with anything, but would take measures that would all but eliminate his army and his weapons potential, especially if they were led to believe that this might just be their last chance before he went nuclear. [...]

Hariri was a close friend of French President Chirac and was reportedly planning a come back to Lebanese politics and, as noted above, was credited with "restoring Lebanon's reputation abroad as a liberal, open Middle Eastern country".

The fact is, the emergence of ANY open, democratic, liberal and SECULAR Arab nation, particularly on Israel's border and under the influence of an internationally respected figure like Hariri, would threaten the carefully crafted image of Middle Eastern Arab states as "Islamic terrorist regimes" and undo all of Mossad's hard work. It is for this reason that Hariri became an enemy of the state of Israel and of its patron the US, and had to be removed from the picture. By framing Syria for the murder of Hariri, Israel could also apply pressure on the Syrian government and, as we have seen with the beginning of the withdrawal of Syria troops from Lebanese territory, provide the pro-Israeli Christians in the Lebanese government with a much bigger say in Lebanese politics.

Coming back to the bombing itself; it is interesting to note that the details of the attack bore a stark resemblance to many other Israeli intelligence operations, most notably the killing in Beirut in 1979 of then PLO Chief Ali Hassan Salameh aka "the Red Prince".

Gordon Thomas writes in his book "Gideon's Spies":

Three Mossad agents who could pass for Arabs crossed into Lebanon and entered the city. One rented a car. The second wired a series of bombs into its chasis, roof, and door panels. The third agent parked the car along the route the "Red Prince" traveled to his office every morning. Using precise timing Rafi Eitan had provided, the car was set to explode as PLO chief Salameh passed. It did, blowing him to pieces.

Hariri's murder followed a very similar pattern. Approx 300kg of explosives were packed into a car sitting outside a derelict hotel on a Beirut road. As Hariri's cavalcade of armored Mercedes Benz cars passed, the bomb was remotedly detoned, obliterating several cars - blowing one into the third story of the hotel - killling 14 people injuring 135 others and leaving a 15 foot deep, 40 feet wide, crater in the road.

Of course, no one should be surprised to hear that the the mythical yet ubiquitous al-Qaeda AND the Palestinians were immediately dragged into the fray. Reuters "informs" us:

The Palestinian who appeared in a video claiming responsibility for the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri ... called Hariri a Saudi agent and said the attack was also "in revenge for the pious martyrs killed by security forces of the Saudi regime" and used a religious term for Saudi Arabia often used by al Qaeda militants fighting Riyadh's U.S.-allied government since 2003.

It is interesting to note that in most other False Flag operations, Mossad and/or the CIA employed one of the many "previously unknown al-Qaeda-linked groups" to claim responsibility for their attacks, yet in this instance the blame had to land squarely at the doorstep of Syria, so hot on the heels of the claim of reponsibility by an "al-Qaeda-linked group"...

'Qaeda' Says Jihadists Didn't Kill Hariri

DUBAI (Reuters) - A statement attributed to al Qaeda and posted on the Internet on Tuesday denied Islamists had killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, saying Lebanese, Syrian or Israeli intelligence were behind the attack.

The statement, signed by a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Al Qaeda Organization in the Levant, was posted on an Islamist Web site often used by al Qaeda a day after another unknown Islamist group said it was behind the huge Beirut blast that killed Hariri.

The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified.

"Blaming the Jihadist and Salafist groups for what happened in Beirut is a complete fabrication," the statement said. "The priorities of the jihadist groups in the Levant are supporting our brethren in Iraq and Palestine, not blowing up cars."

Clearly, the technology involved in dispatching Hariri was far beyond the capabilities of a group of Afghani cave-dwellers or the fully oppressed and marginalised Palestinian militants. No indeed, this particular operation required the resources of a modern, fully equipped and well organised covert intelligence agency.

As the Economist stated:

Some detect the work of an intelligence service—if not Syria’s, some other foreign power’s—in the method of the attack. Certainly, the size and sophistication of the bomb suggest it was the work of a well-organised and experienced group, or a government. The blast was big enough to leave a huge crater and shatter windows hundreds of metres away. Moreover, it was sophisticated enough to defeat jamming mechanisms, which the billionaire Mr Hariri’s convoy always used while travelling, to forestall such remotely triggered attacks. Mr Hariri, who made his fortune in construction in Saudi Arabia, knew he had many enemies and took what countermeasures he could.

A quick note on the above. While "construction" is certainly part of the equation, the fact that Hariri was a billionaire is unlikely to be the real motivation for his murder, despite the ever so subtle spin from the Economist.

As in the case of Iraq, Israel is determined to do whatever necessary to ensure that it remains all-powerful in the region and prevent any of its Arab neigbours from emerging as solid, unified Muslim democracies that it could not demonise as "terrorist states". By murdering Hariri and having the blame pinned on Syria, the Mossad have removed a stablising influence on recovering Lebanese society and the Middle East in general, and given the US government an excuse to further ratchet up the war rhetoric towards Damascus.

In this sense, Israel shares a common goal with the US and it is for this reason that Israel has always enjoyed the overwhelming support of successive US administrations. While the US and Israel both make much of their bogus "war on terrorism", both countries have long since realised that it is by fomenting "terrorism" and "terrorist" groups that their control of the Middle East can be assured. Yet, while both countries share a common goal, the reasons that each desires to achieve that goal are slightly different.

By controlling the extensive oil resources in the Middle East (and the countries that sit upon them), the US can ensure that it continues to top the heap of world superpowers. Israel too wishes to remain as a powerful world player, and its leaders realise that acting as a hired thug for the US in the region is the best way to do so. Yet it is more than mere power lust that is driving Israel's leaders to deliberately antagonise and provoke the entire Arab world. Israel's very presence in the Middle East is predicated on the Judaic notion of a "chosen people" and their very own homeland granted to them thousands of years ago by their mythical god, yahweh.

While it may be possible (if unlikely) to make a convincing geopolitical argument for the US government's Middle East policies over the years, to understand the thinking of people like Sharon (and all those that act on his orders) one would have to first embrace the idea that a group of human beings can constitute a "chosen people", one of their lives being worth more than 1,000 of the lives of the "lesser" people of the world. One would also have to accept that the "chosen people" are divinely entitled to a piece of land in the Middle East and are permitted therefore to act in any way necessary to achieve their goals of "lebensraum".

While the Israeli government is careful to distance itself from extreme Judaic beliefs, it is clear that it is just such beliefs that underpin its policies.

To conclude. There are only two nations that had the means, motive and opportunity to carry out the particular type of attack that took the life of Hariri - a man who was one of the very few remaining hopes for a just and lasting peace in Lebanon and the greater Middle East.

Sadly, it seems that peace is the very last thing on the minds of the people who over 80 years ago drew the map of what has become the killing fields of the modern day Middle East. Their decades (or should we say millennia) long agenda is simply too far developed for them to permit anything or anyone to stand in the way of its full and undoubtedly bloody implementation. All of it coming soon to a phony theatre of "war on terrorism" near you.

Update May 2006: In his book Mordakte Hariri. Unterdruckte Spuren im Libanon (The Hariri File: Silenced Evidence in Lebanon) German journalist Jurgen Cain Kulbel makes a strong case for the United States and Israeli link to the Hariri assassination.

The major revelation in the book is that the static emitters of Mr Hariri's convoy, normally capable of preventing the activation of bombs at a distance, "totally failed". The journalist affirms, citing a Swiss expert, that the system could only be neutralized by its maker, which happens to be none other than an Israeli company founded by ex-Mossad agents.

See this link for an article on this author and his book.