The leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, has charged that contrary to an expected UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon report that will blame Hezbollah for the February 14, 2005 bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, he has Israeli spy plane evidence that shows the Israelis were closely monitoring Hariri's route on the day he was killed in Beirut.
WMR has previously reported that it was Mossad, along with CIA contract operatives in Lebanon, that carried out the assassination of Hariri.
A recent Israeli Lobby-backed campaign against former CNN Middle East editor Octavia Nasr for tweeting that she regretted the death of the late Lebanese Shi'a cleric Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, who died last month, was likely an attempt by the Israeli-influenced U.S. media, including CNN -- which employs former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spokesman Wolf Blitzer as its Washington bureau chief -- to paint Fadlallah as a pro-Hezbollah militant prior to the issuance of the UN report blaming Hezbollah for Hariri's assassination. The same cabal of Israeli apologists in the media also recently attacked CNN's Middle East correspondent Ben Wedeman for his views on Israel.
AIPAC and its friends who overly-populate the senior editorial and production positions in America's news media wanted to put all the attention on Nasr and her admiration for Fadllallah to take attention off of what happened to Fadlallah on March 4, 1985.
In the Beirut suburb of Bir-al-Abid, a massive car bomb was detonated in an attempt to assassinate Fadlallah. Although Fadlallah escaped, the bomb, detonated by remote control, leveled several city blocks, killed 8 innocent bystanders, and injured more than 300 people. The perpetrators were the CIA aided by Mossad. The people of Lebanon have long memories and recall how the CIA and Mossad conspired to try to kill Fadllalah. In fact, the bombing attack on Fadlallah bore similarities to the car bombing assassinations of Hariri, Lebanese parliamentarian Elie Hobeika, and other leading Lebanese politicians during the past eight years.
None other than former CIA director Stansfield Turner spilled the beans on the CIA being behind the assassination attempt on Fadlallah on June 1, 1986, when, in an interview, he revealed that the United States had tried to kill Fadlallah with a car bomb.
The CIA, using its own case officers and Lebanese operatives, planned the assassination of Fadlallah with Mossad agents inside Lebanon. It is with this background of joint CIA-Mossad assassination teams active in Lebanon that Nasrallah bases his contention that it was not Hezbollah, but the Israelis, who assassinated Hariri. Nasrallah, for the time being, is not alleging U.S. involvement but based on what the UN Report contains, that may change.
Contrary to the propaganda organs of Israel's Lobby in the United states, particularly the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a Mossad contrivance, Fadlallah was generally an informed voice of reason in the Muslim world in the Middle East. The pro-Israel at any cost camp is entitled to their opinions, all of which are deeply flawed and racist in nature, but they are not entitled to their own facts. The facts are that Fadlallah, targeted for assassination by the CIA, Mossad, and Lebanese Christian right-wingers, supported women's rights, religious dialog and scholarship, anti-colonialism, peace for Jews in the Middle East, and opposed turning Lebanon into an Islamic republic. Compare Fadllalah's beliefs to those of Israeli racists like Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and their anti-Arab and anti-black mole inside the Obama White House, Rahm Emanuel, and Fadlallah does come off sounding like a Middle Eastern version of Nelson Mandela.
The CIA under William Casey began tilting the agency in the direction of cooperating with Mossad and eclipsing the "Arabists" in the agency. The 1981 appointment by Casey of his friend Max Hugel, a pro-Israeli who was later enmeshed in improper stock transactions and problematic links to Israeli intelligence, as deputy director for operations at Langley, allowed for the promotion of officials who were biased toward Israel.
A formerly Secret Director of Central Intelligence memorandum, dated June 24, 1982, for Casey, prepared by an obviously pro-Israeli National Intelligence Officer (NIO) in the Near Eastern/South Asia Division for a briefing on June 25 for Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Deputy Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, took a swipe at the CIA's "Arabists."
At the time, Lebanon was mired in civil war and there were demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Beirut and their replacement by international and Lebanese forces. The NIO was looking for a "token" Israeli pullback to allow for "Arab regimes" to claim they influenced the United States in bringing it about. The memo indicates that the major regime to benefit from the duplicity of a token Israeli pullback was Saudi Arabia.
The NIO then writes of West Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah: "A move on West Beirut by the Israelis is obviously not in our wider interests. I personally feel it would not be totally cataclysmic, but many Arabists [emphasis added] disagree. If it occurs, it may not initially be the all-out bloody advance being discussed, but rather: -- Isolation of the Shi'a areas from attack, and pressure on Shia leaders to police their own area. The content of recent Shia/Phalange contacts seem to indicate this may be possible."
But then in a reference to Palestinian refugee camps in the Beirut region that would, three months later, between September 16 and 18 September, be the sites of a bloody massacre of as many as 3500 Palestinian men, women, and children by Israeli-supervised Lebanese Christian militia members at the camps of Sabra and Chatilla.
The CIA NIO/NESA memo states that a move by Israelis into West Beirut could lead to an "attack on the Palestinian camps (largely denuded of civilians) and advance to the Mazra' artea on the edge of the Beirut city center." Three months later, the "largely denuded" camps of civilian Palestinians would see as many as 3500 murdered by a joint Lebanese Christian-Israeli force. Evn the Israeli Kahan Commission charged the Israeli Defense Forces under then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon with "indirect" responsibility for the Sabra and Chatilla massacres. The goal of an Israeli move into West Beirut, as seen by the NIO/NESA, was "further compression of Palestinian/Leftist/regional Syrian elements into the remaining area of West Beirut." This would be followed by a token Israeli pullback to serve "our interests as well." The NIO/NESA hope was that Palestinian leaders (Arafat, Khalaf, and others) would exit the area clandestinely and not become "martyrs."
The memo also reports that President Reagan had an "acrimonious" meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin over the issue of Palestinian autonomy. The NIO/NESA said that Reagan pressured Begin "hard on a wider scenario for Palestinian autonomy than he now envisages." The NIO/NESA reports he discussed the stormy Reagan-Begin meeting with "the local Mossad representative" and was told the written autonomy plan Begin left, was "pretty much the same restricted autonomy scheme already discussed by the Israelis."
Some thirty years later, the Israeli "scheme" continues to emphasize a "restricted autonomy" plan for the Palestinians. And, unlike Reagan, Barack Obama has not lifted one finger to pressure the Israelis and insists on keeping a chief Mossad asset as his chief of staff.
