The title may imply that they downed a commercial jet but failed to assassinate Arafat - which is definitely not the case - but I couldn't fit "Israeli officials reveal 1982 plan to execute Arafat by downing a commercial passenger jet aborted at the last minute."
This is also the same title that NYTimes uses to link to this article.
It was NOT a jet, it was a DHC-5[0]... and the article says that right in the first sentence. Saying "passenger jet" invokes a far greater scope of potential tragedy. It was likewise not a commercial flight, but a charter.
The actual article title is, "How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine", and it goes well beyond this one flight.
As for that DHC-5 flight, it did NOT have Yassir Arafat on it in the first place. Once Mossad recognized that was the case, the operation was called off; it's not like they fired and missed.
> Once Mossad recognized that was the case, the operation was called off; it's not like they fired and missed.
I said the title should be "aborted at last minute" not "failed" - how can that possibly be misconstrued as implying they still tried?
> It was NOT a jet, it was a DHC-5[0]... and the article says that right in the first sentence. Saying "passenger jet" invokes a far greater scope of potential tragedy.
The NYTimes notification on my phone says "commercial jet." And as far as greater scope of potential tragedy... instead of a civilian jet with Arafat and his cronies, it was instead a civilian jet with Arafat's brother and 30 wounded Palestinian children and flight staff. How on earth is that less of a potential tragedy!?
> Hopefully an HN admin will come and fix it soon. [..] It's been fixed.
No, I fixed it myself because despite what you might believe, the intent was never to mislead and I maintain that it didn't. :)
> Because they didn't fire on it? And had no intention of doing so. You make it sound like the actually intended to shoot it down.
They absolutely did intend to shoot it down when they thought that Arafat was on it. They didn't when they learned he wasn't. At any rate, you know that's not what I was comparing, this is just what you've chosen to interpret my superlative as being in reference to.
Did you even read the article, though? There was never a belief that he was alone on that jet. And there were many occasions where Israel signed off on assassination plots that would have lead to the death of even Israeli citizens just to kill Arafat. There were even plots to blow up a stadium then time car bombs to go off outside the stadium as the people were fleeing.
These weren't aborted or called off except by the reluctance of brave individuals in the Israeli defense ministry and air force that deliberately mislead their superiors and put off pulling the trigger or confirming the identification so as to avoid the civilian collateral damage.
"Israel came close to downing a plane to assassinate Arafat" would have been a better choice of order of the same words (minus the jet-prop confusion).
Just for the record, there's another policy that says you should mind your tone when speaking to others and have some modicum of respect instead of going off like someone came at you guns blazing.
There's no reason for such an appalling level of emotional response on a forum such as this where intellectual discourse is king.
When one decides to kill a state leader, he is better to kill him for sure to avoid retaliation.
Trying to kill somebody, and leaving the job half-finished is a sure way to part with life yourself sooner or later.
They were obviously afraid of that. And because they were afraid of even a remote chance that he can get knowledge of this later, they decided to finish him of with Polonium poison, not leaving anything to chance.
This is also the same title that NYTimes uses to link to this article.