On the evening of February 17, BBC Radio 4 interviewed author Gordon Thomas, who estimated that half a million (and as many as a million) Jews work for the Mossad--or at least are on call. This is a rather remarkable work force, what with the cunning of the Jews and their mental agility. Everybody knows, moreover, that they live by the seal of secrecy.
Now, according to the Dubai police, there are at least 26 suspects in the execution of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and, at the rate the constabulary of what used to be till the day before yesterday the Monaco of the Arab world is naming names, perhaps there’ll be a hundred by the end of the week. (You can read about much of this in a blog post by Douglas Murray in the Daily Telegraph.) But let’s stick, just for convenience sake, to the 26 and assume that all are Jewish--although they don’t all have Jewish names or noses. I myself do possess both of these attributes of the tribe. Yet I have to confess that I was not party to the justified poisoning of al-Mabhouh. Still, that leaves 999,974 in the cohort of possible accomplices, working full-time or just laboring on a part-time basis.
Putting the estimate of the world-wide Jewish population at 13 million--maybe there are more, but probably not fewer (and leaving out Roger Cohen and his comrades)--that still leaves one out of 13 in the furtive “we-group.” And, believe me, that is something for the BBC really ought to worry about.
I want to state openly that I am open to an approach by the Mossad, and I very much resent the fact that it has chosen 999,973 other Jews instead of me. Yossi Melman of Ha’aretz does ask a salient question about the 26 (and possibly 30) conspirators. Why did the Mossad need so many in on the act?