An Israeli businessman held by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and key to a proposed prisoner swap was kidnapped on an illicit trip to Abu Dhabi and then taken to Lebanon, Israeli security sources said on Wednesday. The revelations followed an Israeli Supreme Court ruling against an appeal by businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum's family to keep details of his abduction in late 2000 under wraps. The family fears publication could jeopardise Israeli efforts to secure the return of Tannenbaum, 57, and the bodies of three soldiers ambushed by Hezbollah in exchange for freeing several hundred Arab prisoners held in Israel.
| Lousy idea. I hope to hell they don't go through with it... |
The security sources said Tannenbaum went to the capital of the United Arab Emirates—which does not have diplomatic ties or a peace treaty with Israel—to pursue private deals of an unknown nature. It was not clear how he reached Abu Dhabi, given that Israeli passport-holders are barred from the country. Tannenbaum was accompanied by an Israeli Arab who secretly worked for Hezbollah and arranged the businessman's abduction through Iran to Lebanon. Hezbollah earlier said Tannenbaum, a reserve Israeli artillery colonel, was a Mossad agent who arrived in Lebanon of his own free will.
| Yeah, yeah. Everybody's a Mossad agent... I wonder what involvement, if any, the Abu Dhabi authorities had in the snatch? Seems like it would be difficult to spirit the guy out of the country without the local cops noticing. |
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