How Gilad Shalit Will Save Netanyahu

Mark my words, Gilad Shalit is coming home. He will soon be set free but not because of German mediations or the thousands of appeals made by his parents and their supporters. He's coming home because Bibi needs Gilad more than Gilad needs him.

In a television address aimed at countering public pressure for the government to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, said that "Israel is willing to pay a heavy price for the release of Shalit, but not at any price."



The man with the "three no(s) : no withdrawal from the Golan Heights, no discussion of the case of Jerusalem, no negotiations under any preconditions," finds himself in a position to reluctantly say yes to negotiations with Hamas, a "terrorist' organization in his book, an entity he was keen to topple from day one.

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Mossad's Little Helpers

The assassination of al-Mabhouh has thrown an unwanted spotlight on the workings of Mossad and its specially trained assassination team, known as a kidon, the Hebrew word for bayonet, something that the Israeli government had not bargained for when the approval to conduct such an operation came directly from the top: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Incidentally, it was also during Mr. Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister in 1997 when a kidon unit of the Mossad bungled the attempted assassination of Khalid Mish’al, the current leader of Hamas, in the streets of Amman in Jordan by injecting a mysterious poison into his ear.



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The Mossad Reality Show

The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas military commander had all the elements needed to shoot it to the top of editorial priority lists around the world. There was mystery, political rivalry, stolen identities and most importantly, footage – 27 minutes of it, all filmed by numerous surveillance cameras around Dubai.

Soon after investigations began, Dubai Police declared it was "99 per cent certain" that agents of Israel's secret intelligence agency - Mossad - had committed the murder. But reporters looking to Israel for concrete information got none – the official policy on sensitive security issues is one of deliberate ambiguity.



Jamal Dajani joins the conversation on Al Jazeera’s Listening Post to examine the trail of clues left by al-Mabhouh's assassins and the changing narratives of media across the world.