At least 16 people were killed and 57 wounded in a suicide bombing at a Rishon Letzion pool club late on 7 May 2002
The Israeli internet news service DEBKAfile's sources had predicted that suicide attacks would be resumed on the initiative of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Tuesday 7 May during Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's meeting with US President George Bush!
Does this mean that the Israeli intelligence services are so clever and farsighted? Or did they get this piece of information as well from Mohammed Rashid, Arafat's personal financial adviser?
If the Israeli secret services are so well informed, how come they didn't prevent this bombing from happening?
Is this a coincidence or again one of these occasions in which secret services have very concrete information on a planned attack but, for some mysterious reason - supposedly foolishness and/or incompetence - fail to prevent it from happening?
According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'modia, this was the case with the suicide bombing in Netanya on the eve of Passover (27 March 2002), which was used as a pretext for operation "Defensive Shield".
Also very strange is the fact that the suicide bomber of the Dolphin disco in Tel Aviv on 1 June 2001 was transported by an Arab collaborator working for the Israelis. The chances that this collaborator had been trying to rehabilitate himself in Palestinian society through this act are very low, as he took with him on this dangerous mission his own daughter. Only a collaborator would have transported from the West Bank to Tel Aviv an obviously suspect Palestinian who claimed to be "looking for work" on the eve of the Jewish sabbath, of all days!
There is a long list of similar instances. Going back a very long way, according to very reliable sources, the Israeli secret services obtained detailed and reliable information in advance about the planned Palestinian attack in September 1972 during the Olympic Games in Munich! Nothing was done to prevent this assault!
It is still debatable which side profited more from the ensuing propaganda campaign. Many Palestinians claim that their cause was internationally acknowledged through such spectacular acts. On the other hand, it is very safe to argue that the Munich operation helped Israel to depict the Palestinians as a bunch of terrorists.
One way or another, afterwards the Israeli secret service Mossad got a pretext to launch a worldwide operation against the Palestinian "terror infrastructures", while actually leaving alone most of the Palestinians directly involved in the Munich operation!
* Shraga Elam is an Israeli investigative journalist based in Zurich and author of a highly-praised book in German on the collaboration of the Zionist leadership with the Nazis. The book, Hitlers Faelscher: wie juedische amerikanische und Schweizer Agenten der SS beim Falschgeldwaschen halfen [Hitler's Forgers: How Jewish, American and Swiss agents helped the SS with laundering faked money], is published by Uberreuter Verlag and can be purchased here.