A Real Case of Murder Unfolds Like a Hollywood Thriller

On January 19, a military official from the Palestinian group Hamas was killed in his luxury hotel room in the Arab Emirate of Dubai. The Dubai police call the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh an assassination by agents of Israel, who allegedly entered Dubai using the identities of other, real people and whose pictures were recorded on surveillance cameras at the airport and at the hotel itself. The Israeli government has said nothing, but the incident has lit political firestorms in Israel itself and around the world. Were the killers agents of Israel? Why did they falsely adopt the identities of real Israelis and allow themselves to be videotaped? Was it a targeted assassination justified in the interests of national defense? Is that like the US practice of using Predator drones to take out the leaders of the Taliban and al Qaeda?