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March 13, 2010

Tasteless ad campaign?

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CNN reporter Paula Hancocks published yesterday that a new Israeli ad is mocking the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, killed last January in Dubai. The video attached to the article was marked with the subtitle asking "Tasteless ad campaign?", to which I would like to repond.

Though never admitted, Israel is considered as the "obvious suspect", and as such was targetted by many countries - starting with Dubai itself, and continued by many other countries - either for the killing itself, or for the use of forged passports. If Israel is indeed reponsible for the killing of al-Mabhouh, I guess we'll never know. If the Mossad is indeed involved, then this kind of information is unlikely to leak from within the Mossad's secured walls and gates.

Either way, while other countries or people see this story as "did Israel do that or not", Israelies see this in an entirely different perspective. Most Israelies react with one (or more) of the following:
1. Did Israel really do that? If so, our Mossad guys really rock!
2. Did anyone else do that? Were they trying to frame Israel?
3. What do they think, the Mossad would be so reckless to be taped like that?
4. What do they think, the Mossad is stupid? So many cameras - and they caught not even a single agent!

The one thought that is common to all Israelies, excluding the most left-wing exteremists, is: "Thank God and Good Riddance, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh!"

While the world is trying to ignore this "tiny" detail, al-Mabhouh was a terrorist, directly involved in the killing of Israelies, and currently (well, no longer, but recently) involved in smuggling weapons from Iran to the terrorists in Gaza. For Israelies al-Mabhouh is a killer, not a victim, as portrayed by CNN.

CNN's article says: "As Dubai authorities blamed Israel for the hit, Israeli marketing minds saw a business opportunity.". My reponse to that is that maybe the Dubai authorities should be blaming themselves for this entire incident. Maybe if they were less focused on the "business opportunities" introduced by trading with "innocent" people like al-Mabhouh, and more focused on stopping the arms trades in their country - arms that are used for killing actual innocent people, maybe all of this could have been prevented.

Israelies don't know if they should be proud of his killing or not, but only because most Israelies don't know who did it. But either proud or not - for Israelies the killing of al-Mabhouh is a reason to be happy, and yes - definitely something to mock.

So is this a tasteless ad campaign? It may be tasteless only to someone who really doesn't understand Israel's daily fear of terror. For someone who does understand this fear, the death of a terrorists is very tasteful: it tastes like living!

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