Did Hamas Try To Kill Abbas?

Today's Sunday Times reports:

A HAMAS plot to assassinate Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been thwarted after he was tipped off by Israeli intelligence.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izza Din Al-Qassem, had planned to kill Abbas at his office in Gaza, intelligence sources said.

I suppose this could be part of the smoldering civil war that has been brewing between Hamas and Fatah since the election in January, and considering how the two sides have been shooting at each other, it is not hard to believe. YNet and Haaretz (which reports there is no independent verification of the report) have both carried the story.

Meanwhile, not surprisingy, the spokesman for the Al Qassam Brigades of Hamas, Abu Obaida, denied the reports and Dr. Salah Al-Bardaweel, the spokesman of the Palestinian Legislative Council told the Kuwait News Agency: "Assassinations are not our style" (a relief to Israelis everywhere, I'm sure).

The Sunday Times article was written by Uzi Mahnaimi. According to the bio to his book The Best of Enemies: The Memoirs of Bassam Abu-Sharif and Uzi Mahnaimi on Amazon.com, he is a former Israeli intelligence officer who specialized in recruiting Arab agents. He resigned in 1984 and became a left-wing journalist.

In 1998, he co-wrote an article for the Sunday Times entitled "Israel Planning 'Ethnic' Bomb as Saddam Caves In" (reprinted here--need to scroll down). Winds of War discounts the reliability of such a report on the grouds that a significant proportion of the Jews in Israel ARE ethnic Arabs.

In another article for the Sunday Times, Mahnaimi wrote in July 2004 about Israel's impending attack on Iran:

Amid growing concern in the US government over Iran's apparent determination to build a nuclear bomb, the official said he believed Israel would attack the plant, on the Gulf coast, if it appeared fuel rods were about to be shipped there.

In December 2005 he wrote a similar article entitled Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran:

Israel's armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.

In July 2005 an article entitled "Finger points to British intelligence as al-Qaeda websites are wiped out" quoted Mahnaimi as a source. MEMRI has a piece that discredits the report and Yigal Carmon, head of MEMRI casts doubts on Mahnaimi part in it as 'not credible.'

All of which is not to say that the story about the Hamas plot is not true or that Mahnaimi is not reliable. There are all kinds of leads and sources available in the area that don't pan out. Also, Israel no doubt has some sort of plan in dealing with Iran and the fact they have not acted upon it yet does not mean it does not exist. But without outside verification of the story of Hamas, I don't know how much weight it can be given, and given the potential repurcussions in the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Fatah, such a story probably would need corraboration in order to be taken seriously.

UPDATE: Check out Meryl Yourish and Joe's Dartblog who have more current information on Mahnaimi.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Hamas and Fatah and Abbas and Uzi Mahnaimi.