OpEds—Special Reportage

—Joshua 9:26

Roi Tov

[O]bsessive leaders recycle. Instead of admitting defeat, they wait in the darkest corners, holding their old lies ready to be used at the first opportunity. They are skilled, theIR arrival at the top echelon of political life proves that. They pickup the old lie, dress it up with Prada, add a lot of shiny lipstick, and for a good measure sprinkle it with perfume.

“This time they will buy it, you need a large war to remain in power,” the closest political adviser of Netanyahu told his boss while looking at his contacts’ cards. After all, he may need a new boss pretty soon.

“OK, give the story to Issacharof,” his boss summarized.

Voila!

Israeli slang would surprise most Westerners. Even Hebrew speaking Jews living abroad will find it impossible to follow it. A website often quoted here is Walla! Could you guess that its name is the adaptation of French “voila” to the phonetic sensitivities of Hebrew speakers?

Originally a portal just linking sites of interest and providing Hebrew email, it grew up and became a news provider. In 2012, it hired Avi Issacharof and entered the realm of mainstream media.

After specializing in Middle Eastern studies, he worked for Israel Radio as its Arab Issues reporter and got a prize for his reports on the al-Aqsa Intifada. Afterwards, he moved to a printed newspaper, Haaretz, as its reporter on Arab Topics. This outlet is the unofficial Voice of the Shin Beth secret police.

In 2004, he published a book “The Seventh War—How did we win and how did we lose the war against Palestinians” together with Amos Arel. In 2008, the two published a book about the 2006 war against Hezbollah. Both books got awards from the Institute for National Security Studies.

In 2012, he moved to Walla!

The Immediate Suspect

Yesterday, Issacharof published an article in the magazine of Walla! The attractive format of this section, which resembles printed journals and features great images, brings a lot of attention, though it is limited to speakers of the Old Language. The article was entitled “The Immediate Suspect—Who Helped Hamas to Construct Lower Gaza?”

“Lower Gaza” is the mocking nickname given by Hebrew media to the tunnels being attacked these days by the IDF.^*

He admits that AMAN (IDF Intelligence Directorate) knew about forty attack-tunnels being developed in the last five years. Israel unawareness of all tunnels is also reminded. Laughing at Israel’s victims, he claims that soon Hamas will place traffic lights and policemen to make order during rush hours.

The tunnels are sprinkled with command bunkers, which AMAN knows that were not damaged in the ongoing attacks.

Attack tunnels are those that enable the shooting of missiles through disguised windows. Other tunnels include troops and merchandise transport tunnels. The latter became famous after a massive network of them connected Gaza and the Sinai through Rafah. Hamas has an experience of many years in this peculiar technology.

“Israel knew and did nothing,” explained Issacharof in several lengthy paragraphs. “The political top echelon preferred dealing with Palestine at UNESCO than take care of a guerrilla that kept the quiet in the south,” completes his review of the situation.

One paragraph at the beginning of the piece is crucial because it contains open disinformation that can lead to a war; the tricky texts are in bold. “This industry was not created overnight. It is possible to assume that to build the forty attack tunnels (maybe their number is higher), Hamas would have need significant help, apparently from a large organization or a state. I do not mean only funding, also engineering help. It is true that Hamas could have used its experts that built the Rafah tunnels, but these were simpler tunnels that did not need special resources and expertise…

Cu Chi, South Vietnam

Western arrogance is proverbial; Israeli arrogance does not lag behind. Mr. Issacharof acknowledges the past achievements of Hamas in tunnel digging but denies them the capability to advance their knowledge, techniques and strategy.

Mr. Issacharof, can you elaborate the point? Do you think that only Westerners can develop gunpowder? I apologize for my error; gunpowder was developed by the Chinese.

The first two years of my exile were spent in South East Asia, including Vietnam.⁺ I visited the Cu Chi Tunnels in what had been the puppet state of South Vietnam (see Is Israel South Vietnam?) and walked through what Vietnamese people like to call “tourist-sized tunnels.”

Some of the tunnels used by the Vietnamese army were expanded to allow Westerners a comfy experience. The original tunnels were excavated with primitive methods. Yet, that was enough to defeat the world’s strongest army.

Hamas has years of experience, skilled engineers and the will to face its oppressors. There is no reason to believe that they need external help.

This is the moment to remind Mr. Issacharoff, the eminent erudite in Middle Eastern studies, that Israeli engineering capabilities can be questioned on a strongest ground. On July 14, 1997, four Australian sportsmen were killed and over sixty were injured after they fell into the Yarkon River, due to the collapse of a small bridge during the Maccabiah inauguration ceremony. The waters weren’t deep, and flowed slower than a man walks. They were killed due to the poisoned waters.

A Tunnel from Gaza to Tehran

It is possible to assume that Avi Issacharof, at the request of his political bosses, built a Babel Tower of cards. Not even one of this cards show the high rank “A,” all of them show valueless “2;” six million 2’s, no aces. He assumes that Iran and Hamas are behind the tunnels, because that is what Prime Minister Netanyahu needs in order to revive the Iran Scare.

Between 2010 and 2013, Netanyahu promoted a war on Iran. In November 2013, an agreement between Iran and the international community thwarted Netanyahu’s profitable war plan.

In July 2014, the old lie was picked up, it was dressed up with Prada, shiny lipstick brightened its ugly face, and for a good measure it was sprinkled with expensive perfume. Netanyahu needs a war with Iran and if not removed from office, he will engineer it.

“It was a new Holocaust, we did not have any choice,” he will justify an Israeli nuclear attack on Tehran.

APPENDIX

TGP Editors’ Note: We recently received this material and it seemed of genuine validity, especially given the current circumstances, with Israel on a warpath and looking for excuses. However, we are still a bit confused about the author. We found the piece below published by Veterans Today fills many of the gaps. 
•••

Who is Roi Tov – and Why Should We Care? – Updated

Because He is One of Us – He Has Earned It

“Israel is not a human country. It has betrayed all bonds with humanity” … Roi’ Tov

Jim W. Dean, VT Editor        … featuring  Roi’ Tov

[I] started out on this to post his recent article on Egypt clamping down on the Gaza tunnels. Roi’ Tov has a hard fought reputation for writing about such things from a unique perspective, that of an ex-Israeli like Gilad Atzmon in a way.

My readers know I like to put a personal touch on stories. An inanimate news delivery carries no real passion with it so you are left with an AP story. Some of the most wonderful parts of the news can be the stories of those who made it, the story tellers themselves.

For a magazine layout piece I go looking for images, or course,  and maybe even a video to put the man behind the writing. That always starts with a photo. But there was none. Despite his website and the record of his writing the first search turned up a zip.

I must admit that due to our past lives we get spooked at VT quickly when things we expect to find easily cannot be found. We have an intimate history of those often being the result of some nefarious intent to hide something. But one of the major perks working with VT is access to talented staff.

If you want to know something about someone you cannot find, you can call Gordon. And for normal requests we are talking maybe one and a half to two minutes for him to deliver. It is a humbling experience as it is a reminder that people are NOT all created equal.

What Gordon produced in that two minute changed the whole focus of the article. The Gaza tunnels can wait for another day, as they will still be there. But it is time for us to meet Roi’ Tov today. The interview below made it an instant decision.

His audio is a bit rough as I think Roi was far away with a cel phone connection. But as I listened to it I knew that he should tell his own story with me doing the drum roll.

His given name is Reuven Schossen, an ex-captain in the IDF. After his four years of regular service he became a reservist and pursued his education…four degrees, three of them in chemical physics and later an MBA.  He used his scientific skills working for the Jacobsen family chemical businesses, one of the two dozen or so who dominate the Israeli industry.

If any of you are thinking such work might have something to do with the nuclear industry that Israel does not have…because the American government would tell us if it did, that might be a good guess. If so he would be wise to stay clear of all that based on Vanunu’s treatment.

Roi does describe below how a major American chemical company once asked him to pass on a secret American rocket fuel to Israel. Don’t be shocked folks, it has happened more times than you can count.

His final break with Israel came when his army buddies informed military security that he had converted to the Lutheran Church.

As payback he found himself deployed with the army at the Siege of the Church of the Nativity in 2002, an intimate subject with me as I edited my first documentary about it with footage supplied by Father Labib Kobti. It was one hell of an eye opener for me, and one of the best Jim Dean Journals produced in the early day.

Roi’ has been a wandering stateless refugee, supporting himself through his writing and was struggling to get out of Bolivia at some point, or gain refugee status, last I had heard. But he seems to have gotten to the U.S. somehow and we will be following up with him. No response yet to my email sent earlier today.

But I wanted to post this tonight as this was the first time I had heard him, and probably yours, too. Allow me to introduce Mr. Roi’ Tov, a modern man of conscience.

 

ROI’ TOV INTERVIEW | COURTESY VETERANS TODAY

Published on Mar 24, 2012

els into Gas Chambers