PIMPS

There was a time when journalists reported the facts but that was before agenda driven propagandists took the profession into fantasyland.

Fairfax journo Paul McGeough must have delved deep into the imagination to come up with his latest effort (with Amy Goodman) – the supposedly crucial video evidence presumably withheld by Dubai's antiSemite police chief:

Well, the closed-circuit television is the key to understanding the story. And it’s quite remarkable that the Mossad seemed not to give the network of cameras around Dubai a second thought. But the team were filmed arriving individually at Dubai International Airport. The Hamas arms dealer was seen arriving. They followed him to his hotel …

But then it also becomes very chilling, because Mabhouh was in room 230, and the cameras on that level of the hotel pick up the killers going into the room, spending as long as forty-five minutes in the room. And you have to wonder why it took four would-be killers forty-five minutes to dispose of one person. And then they’re seen emerging from the room and waiting for the elevator, with two of them carrying a very—what looks like a very heavy hold-all bag.

McGeogh wouldn't have a clue really. Even if the video existed, how could he identify that these people were Mossad agents and not assassins from Mabhouh's Hamas or the opposition Fatah?

As Maurice Ostroff points out:

One of the most striking aspects was the utter failure of the much vaunted Dubai security. Strangely, all of the video clips available on the internet, show random persons at the airport, in the hotel lobby and outside the elevators. But none show incriminating shots of the culprits entering and leaving room 230, although the hotel CCTV system obviously covers the corridor and the door to his room as is patently evident from short video clips of suspects walking in the corridor past entrances to the rooms."

(Ostroff writes prolifically about Passportgate - see his open leter to David Milliband here)

Why can't McGeough tell us the names of the so-called Mossad agents? Surely, one of them must go by the name of Yossi or Uri?

On the other hand, operatives from a slick spy agency like Mossad would have noticed the CCTV cameras and it wouldn't have needed at least 27 of them to carry out the dirty deed and nor would they have been so clumsy with the passports.

So here's another scenario for your fantasyland style journalism. Maybe the Israelis didn't do it. After all, the only people arrested in respect to this are three Palestinians. Three of the assassins reportedly fled the scene via Iran - an unlikely place of refuge for the Mossad.

No, that's not McGeogh's style. No Israel bashing and it doesn't suit the agenda even if a fair and objective rendition of what's known in this case might lift the profession above the level of pimping which is where it currently wallows.

[Hat tip: Tim Blair's blog]