“Gee, I hope nothing happened to him…”

I remember a joke from my youth.

Two Arabs in Israel were plotting to kill Moshe Dayan.

They tracked him day after day for two months. They noticed that every day he showed up to the same restaurant at 11:30 AM for lunch.

One day they anticipate his arrival and get to the restaurant at 11:25. 11:30 and there’s no sign of Dayan. 11:45 … 12:00 and still no sign of their prey. At 12:30 with Dayan still a no-show, one turns to the other and says, “Gee, I hope nothing happened to him.”

Reading Roger L. Simon’s concluding thoughts about the killing of Muhammad al-Mabhouh reminded me of that joke.

Wait a minute. The Mossad had been tracking Mabhouh on two (undoubtedly more) occasions without assassinating him? Why did they finally do it now? I leave that to you, dear reader.

Israel Matzav speculates some to (possibly) answer that question:

I don’t believe that Mabhouh was kidnapped. But we do know a couple of facts that shed light on why Israel might have gone after Mabhouh and what he might have done during those four hours. Caveat: If Simon classifies himself as an amateur (which he does in the article I just quoted), I’m a pure speculator.

We know, for example, that the last person who saw Mabhouh alive other than his killers was probably Muhammed al-Massoud, a Hamas commander who is reported to have met with Mabhouh in Dubai and who was subsequently arrested. My guess is that the real target of the Mossad was not Mabhouh himself, but documents that Massoud gave him in their meeting. Simon alludes to this, but doesn’t follow it through. After all, we know that Israel had Mabhouh in its custody in the past and released him. It seems unlikely that they suddenly wanted so badly to kill him now that they would have taken the risks that they took with this operation just to kill him.

Those documents, which likely related to Iranian weapons being supplied to Hamas, were photographed by part of the assassination team according to reports. That’s likely why the team was so big.

Much more via memeorandum.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.