Hamas' Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, front, is shown being followed by his alleged killers in this closed-circuit TV image provided by Dubai police
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But relations between the U.S. and Israel are also in a fragile phase. During the Cold War, Israel could claim to be safeguarding American interests against the Soviet-backed armies of Syria, Iraq and Egypt, in a global struggle for a free world. The attitude was summed up by a T-shirt that appeared in Israel in the 1980s of an American fighter plane (presumably one sold to Israel) with the slogan, "Don't Worry America, Israel Is Behind You."
But the Cold War is over, and Israel and its allies in the West now tout the Jewish state as an ally in the so-called war on terror. But in fact, the militant Palestinian and Lebanese groups engaged in a territorial war with Israel are the sworn enemies of the al-Qaeda-inspired radical extremists who are at war with the West. In the struggle against Islamic extremism, Israel risks becoming less of an asset to America and more of a liability. The Obama White House, recognizing that the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict is a recruiting tool for radical Islam, has said that peace in the Middle East is a matter of U.S. national security.
Rather than the war of terror, the current paradigm for the strategic relationship between America and Israel is the cold war against Iran and its allies — Hamas, Hizballah and Syria — for Middle East supremacy that began after the invasion of Iraq. On a military level, ties between America and Israel have never been stronger — the two countries staged their largest ever joint military exercise last year. But most Americans don't really want to be part of a war for Middle Eastern supremacy — they want the U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible and for their government to spend that money creating jobs at home.
Which is why unilateral Israeli military and intelligence operations could potentially be damaging to Israeli-American relations. With the peace process moribund, with Hizballah re-armed and stronger than ever and nuclear talks with Iran at a dead end, the Middle East is on the brink of a regional war that could be sparked by any number of incidents. From its air raid on a suspected nuclear facility in Syria in 2007 and the assassination of Hizballah operations chief Imad Mughniyah (which was also attributed to Mossad) in 2008 to the Dubai job, Israel — by action or by reputation — is notching up a series of scores that its Arab enemies are promising to settle.
The Mabhouh case now has Hamas officials vowing revenge — after months of an uneasy truce between Hamas and Israel. Talks between Israel and Hamas over a prisoner swap to free captured Israeli Gilad Shalit are effectively dead, a Hamas official in Beirut told TIME. If a unilateral Israeli operation like this — or an air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities — ends up increasing the risks for American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, the U.S. public's romance with Israel may finally begin to sour.
— With reporting by Rami Aysha / Beirut