Top Fatah activist Khalil al-Wazir, aka Abu Jihad, was assassinated by Israel exactly 25 years and one month ago. On Monday [May 27] the investigative program Uvda on Israel’s Channel 2 (the most popular channel in Israel) aired a fascinating documentary that recreated the assassination. It's still considered one of the country’s most epic commando operations, long since inscribed in the nation’s collective DNA as an iconic representation of what is deemed here, “the long arm of the IDF,” which knows how to settle bloody accounts with the Jewish state’s worst enemies, no matter where they're hiding. Uvda is the Israeli equivalent of 60 Minutes, and the show was this season’s finale.
Officially, Israel has not taken credit for the assassination of Abu Jihad until now. Credit for the operation could only be given to the Matkal Commando Unit and the Naval Commandos, the IDF’s two finest units, by citing “foreign publications.” What happened that the Israeli censors suddenly decided to lift the ban, and many senior Israeli officials faced the cameras to quarrel over who deserves the glory for something that happened so long ago? Why now, when US Secretary of State John Kerry is still working up a sweat running around the region, so that he can soon present Israel and the Palestinians with a proposal to restart the diplomatic process that they cannot, and should not, turn down?
