An End to Ron Arad Saga?

Ron Arad, the Israel Air Force navigator who went missing in Lebanon in 1986, reportedly is dead. Quoting diplomatic sources knowledgeable about efforts to determine Arad’s whereabouts, Reuters reported Wednesday that the airman is dead and that the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has his body. According to the report, Hezbollah also is holding the remains of three Israeli soldiers who disappeared during a 1982 tank battle in Lebanon.

Israeli officials said they were checking the report. Arad bailed out over Lebanon during a combat mission after his Phantom jet developed engine trouble. Israel believes he at one point was being held in Iran.

Friday, May 14, 2004
Arutz Sheva - Israel National News

Two Arabic-language papers report that a grave containing the remains of Ron Arad has been found. Israel denies. The families of 12 missing Iranian Jews demand that their loved ones not be forgotten.

Two Arabic-language newspapers have now reported that a grave containing the remains of Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad has been found. Arad was captured when his plane was felled over Lebanon in 1986, and has not been heard from since.
On Wednesday, A-Sharq al-Aussat of London reported that the grave had been found in Lebanon, and that a DNA check had proven that Arad was buried there. Hizbullah, according to the report, was said to be awaiting Israel's final confirmation of the findings.
Yesterday, a Lebanese newspaper provided a more detailed report. Al-Mustaqbal reported that Hizbullah had transferred to Israel the remains suspected to be those of Ron Arad. The transfer took place via Ernst Erlau, the German mediator involved in Israeli-Lebanese prisoner exchange matters.
Israel has denied that any new information has come to light regarding Ron Arad.
The second stage of a recent prisoner exchange is set to take place once Hizbullah provides "new, reliable and concrete information" on the fate of the missing navigator. In this second stage, Hizbullah seeks the release of Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese citizen who perpetrated the terrorist attack in Nahariya in 1979 in which Danny Haran, his two children, and a policeman were killed. Hizbullah claims that it has been seeking Arad's grave for the past few months. This can be explained in that Hizbullah leader Nasrallah has put his prestige on the line in guaranteeing the release of Kuntar - and is thus interested in providing "new and concrete" information on Ron Arad.
The first stage of the deal was implemented in January, when Hizbullah released Elchanan Tenenbaum and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers, in exchange for more than 400 Arab prisoners held in Israel.
The families of 12 missing Iranian Jews have petitioned the Supreme Court to force the inclusion of their cause in the current stage of the prisoner exchange. The families say that information on their loved ones must be provided to Israel before Samir Kuntar is released. The 12 attempted to make their way to Israel from Iran in 1994 and 1997, via Pakistan, but never made it to Pakistan and have not been heard from since.
Though the families have asked the Israeli Government many times to take action on their loved ones' behalf, they were told that the efforts needed to be carried out quietly and behind-the-scenes. The families feel that this was just a cover-up for doing nothing at all.

The mystery continues.

Thursday, May 13, 2004

UPDATE: From AP, East Valley Tribune

The video, (Nick Berg,) is of poor quality, and its time stamp seems to show an 11-hour lapse between when the assailants finish their statement and push Berg down, to when they behead him. That suggests a delay between those two portions of tape posted on the Web site.

The decapitation recalled the kidnapping and videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who like Berg was Jewish. Four Islamic militants have been convicted of kidnapping Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan, but seven suspects - including those who allegedly slit his throat - remain at large.

AFP

PARIS, FRANCE, 03-SEP-2003: Israeli air force pilot Ron Arad who was shot down over Lebanon in October 1986. Israeli airman Ron Arad, who went missing over southern Lebanon in 1986, is still alive, a commission of inquiry has concluded, Israeli state television said September 2, 2003.
JERUSALEM, Sept 3 (AFP) - Israel is redirecting its search toward Iran for an airman who was shot down over southern Lebanon and has become a folk hero in the Jewish state, television reports said Wednesday.
Israeli investigators have asked the United States to question -- or allow them to question -- Iraqi former prisoners of war in the Islamic republic on whether any of them saw Ron Arad, whose jet was downed on October 16, 1986.

HAARETZ May12, 2004

Rumors that Arad had been held and eventually killed in Nabi Sheit have been circulating in Lebanon since the late 1980s. Israel, however, believes that Arad was sold to Iran's Revolutionary Guards by his Lebanese captors while still alive, and Israeli intelligence and defense officials said that another purpose of the recent spate of media reports is to try to remove Iran from the picture. Iran is Hezbollah's patron, but Israel believes that it will not give Hezbollah any information on Arad unless it can plausibly deny any involvement in the affair.

So sudden all this news about Ron Arad after he has been sought for nearly 20 years now. Iran seeks *plausible* deniability? Nick berg is 4 sizes smaller than himself on the video which is very fuzzy. Much has been made of the fact that there was little struggle. While in an Iranian prison, Ron Arad's legs were surgically modified so that he could not stand, walk or escape.
BTW, the piece of bone supposedly given to Israel which Hizbullah claimed was Ron Arad's is NOT.
Yeah, I know. Tin foil me.

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