For many readers, the one anti-Israel allegation that deserved closer scrutiny in Nicholas Kristof’s recent New York Times column blew the entire piece. It’s a shame. But he can still fix it

Sweet fella…. Down, boy, DOWN! (Hans Kemperman)

For years, we in Israel have been hearing from others about our Q Units. You know, the espionage departments whose geniuses dream up all those wild weapons and phantasmagorical gadgets to catch our enemies by surprise and leave everyone else wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

For example, exploding pagers.

James Bond had his own Q Unit and a somewhat fumbling and socially bumbling genius referred to only as Q. Some of his gadgets? Well, they certainly were more elegant than belt-borne beepers.

There were sleek Aston Martins tricked out with machine guns, missiles, tire cutters and even ejection seats for those recalcitrant front-seat passengers. There were so many Mont Blanc poison pens and Omega Seamaster satellite transmitters that Q must have had to appear before M on more than one occasion to explain the cost overruns.

Our own Q? Aside from explosive pagers, he or she is at least said to have a thing for live animals.

A FEW YEARS BACK, there were reports out of Egypt that its Sinai beaches were being terrorized by great white Mossad sharks that threatened a good part of Cairo’s tourism revenue. I’m sure there were those claiming that the clever Jews most likely taught these Carcharodon carcharias to swim a hundred miles or so, turn right at the third beach and then make a reasonable number of fin-depth runs toward swimmers, especially children and the elderly.

Poor sharks. The training must have been brutal.

There were claims that Israel trained dolphins to spy. As with the sharks, nothing was ever proved, but you have to wonder whether those cute, playful Delphinidae are even capable of........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)