Surreptitious Intelligence Agencies

by Richard Kostelanetz (October 2013)

Consider, by contrast, the video made in America a few years ago defaming Muhammad. It prompted protests, sometimes anti-American, sometimes violent, around the Arab world. Let me suggest that this resulted from a clandestine operation by the Israeli Mossad, commonly judged the most sophisticated intelligence agency in the world, making all others look like duffers. This reputation comes not because the Israelis are murderous, though murder they sometimes do, but because they are far more clever, as David must be if surrounded by Goliaths, particularly at setting into motion certain provocations that produce a desired result.

Since the origins of the provocative Innocence of Muslims are murky, let me suggest that the Mossad could have funded it as well. The filmmaker is said to be an Egyptian Coptic residing south of Los Angeles. As he had a history of financial problems, his production money must have come from someone else. Though this backer might have no visible connection to Israeli intelligence, such an intermediary could have gotten it from a third party, say a Mossad operative who, as a condition of his donation, requires that his identity be kept secret. Such distancing is not unusual in the covert intelligence biz.

More seriously, a literary colleague more familiar with Israel, reminds me that the Mossad, as an external intelligence agency, had nothing to do with the Jerusalem stoning.

Establishing such premeditation would be problematic were it not for the results:

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