US journalist Austin Tice has been missing for 12 years when he was kidnapped in Syria

Vladimir Putin just agreed to ask deposed head of Syria Bashar Al Assad about Tice and where he might be located.

No, I do not know why PM Bennett had to talk about the operation to find info about Ron Arad's whereabouts during his Knesset speech. Topics like this are generally better left secret. I am not sure he even scores any points in public by raising it, as if trying to show he is doing something.

You can be sure that whenever there is news about missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad, I will mention it here.

Whether dead or alive, it has been looking pretty hopeless for us ever finding out what happened to Arad. The news about him has really dried up in recent years. Israel even announced recently that there are now almost no efforts to continue looking for Arad, due to the lack of any new information over such a long period of time...

Ynet reported yesterday that a Kuwaiti newspaper mentioned that new information about Ron Arad is about to come to light in the coming weeks. I looked for the original article, and actually found it (no easy task)!!! The newspaper that issued the report is called Al-Seyassah, and the report can be found here: http://www.al-seyassah.com/AtricleView/tabid/59/smid/438/ArticleID/267831/reftab/76/Default.aspx

If you read Arabic, this is what it says:

تطورات مفاجئة تكشف قريباً عن مصير الديبلوماسيين الإيرانيين الأربعة ورون آراد بعد 30 عاماً على اختفائهم في لبنان

بعد مرور نحو ثلاثين عاماً على اختفائهم في لبنان
تطورات مفاجئة تكشف قريباً عن مصير الديبلوماسيين الإيرانيين الأربعة ورون آراد

"السياسة" - خاص:

كشفت مصادر استخباراتية غربية لـ"السياسة" عن تطورات مفاجئة ستحصل خلال الأسابيع القليلة المقبلة من شأنها أن تفك طلاسم لغزين استخباريين بعد ما يزيد على ربع قرن من الغموض الذي لفهما.
وقالت المصادر إن أول اللغزين هو اختفاء الايرانيين الاربعة في بيروت منذ العام 1982, وهم محسن الموسوي القائم بالأعمال الإيراني في بيروت آنذاك وأحمد متوسليان قائد "الحرس الثوري" في لبنان آنذاك, وتقي رستغار مقدم سائق السفارة الإيرانية, وكاظم إخوان الصحافي في وكالة الأنباء الايرانية الرسمية "ارنا".
أما اللغز الثاني فيتعلق بمصير الطيار الاسرائيلي رون آراد الذي أسقطت طائرته فوق الأجواء اللبنانية العام 1986 ومازل مصيره مجهولاً حتى اليوم.
وأكدت المصادر أنه سيتم التوصل إلى كشف اللغزين بشكل لا يقبل الشك أو التأويل للمرة الأولى, من خلال تحديد ما جرى مع المفقودين الخمسة منذ اختفائهم أو مكان وجودهم الحالي في ما إذا كانوا أحياء, أو مكان دفنهم في ما إذا كانوا أمواتاً.
وأوضحت المصادر, التي رفضت الإفصاح في هذه المرحلة عن مصير الخمسة, ان التقدم الملحوظ في حل اللغزين جاء إثر معلومات جديدة وقيمة وصلت إلى أحد أجهزة الاستخبارات الغربية بشأن مصير الطيار الإسرائيلي رون آراد, مشيرة إلى أن المفاجأة كانت في أن هذه المعلومات مصدرها أحد أفراد عائلة محسن الموسوي أحد المفقودين الإيرانيين, وتحديداً من شقيقه حسين الموسوي الذي كان في دائرة أحد القلائل في إيران الذين يعرفون مصير الطيار الإسرائيلي, حيث شغل في الفترة التي تزامنت مع سقوط الطيار في أيدي الميليشيات الشيعية آنذاك, منصب مستشار وزير الخارجية الايراني لشؤون الشرق الاوسط والعالم العربي.
وبحسب المصادر, فإن المعلومات التي بحوزة حسين الموسوي, الذي يشغل حالياً منصب مدير مركز البحوث العلمية والدراسات الستراتيجية في الشرق الاوسط, وصلت إلى الجهات الاستخباراتية الغربية عن طريق عدد من الوسطاء, وتم التأكد من صحتها بعد فحصها بشكل معمق, رغم علامات الاستفهام التي دارت بشأنها, في ظل الخشية من أن تكون رغبة موسوي بمعرفة مصير شقيقه, دفعته لتمرير معلومات غير دقيقة أو غير مؤكدة.
وأضافت المصادر أن جهاز استخبارات غربياً يعتزم المساهمة بمعلومات حساسة تتعلق بمصير الإيرانيين الاربعة, حصل عليها إثر نشاط استخباراتي مكثف كان يقوم به في لبنان في الثمانينات من القرن الماضي, ولم يتمكن حتى الآن من استخدامها أو الإفصاح عنها لأسباب تتعلق بحماية الطريقة والأشخاص الذين حصل بواسطتهم على هذه المعلومات, إلا أن وفاة أحد أهم مصادر هذا الجهاز في لبنان أخيراً, أتاحت المجال لاستخدام هذه المعلومات.
وأكدت المصادر أن التقارب بين إيران والدول الغربية يشجع على إمكانية التوصل إلى صفقة في هذا الموضوع, حيث تُدرس الآن الطريقة المثلى لعرض هذا الموضوع على الإيرانيين والإسرائيليين, بشكل يضمن إظهار الطرفين بأنهما رابحان من هذه الصفقة.

If you do not read Arabic and need it translated, here it is after pumping it through Google Translate:


As almost always, Google Translate does a horrible job of producing a well-translated readable article... the point of it though is easily understood - surprising new information will soon be coming to light. His fate, if true, is tied to the Iranians. The report is about 4 Iranian diplomats who went missing in 1982. This information supposedly comes from the brother of one of the missing Iranian agents - this brother has served as Foreign Minister of Iran and is considered one of the few people who actually knew information about Arad when he was FM.

Hopefully it is true, and hopefully we will soon find out what happened to Ron Arad.






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Donate to the Schneider Hospital so I can run the Schneider benefit marathon..

Efforts to find Ron Arad have almost completely ended

  -- NRG

very sad. I have always followed Ron Arad news closely, and it is sad to see them giving up on him, even though it seems like there is now absolutely no chance of finding out anything new...


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Donate to the Schneider Hospital so I can run the Schneider benefit marathon..

Whenever there is news of Ron Arad, I, like most people, can't get enough. I am intrigued and fascinated by any tidbit of information coming from that direction, especially when it is from his direction. In a sense that is part of the reason I am happy the Shalit deal went through, regardless of the terrorists released, so that in 25 years we aren't looking for the same scraps of information we are looking for today about Ron Arad.

The latest to come out is that the family is releasing to the public bits of a journal kept by Ron Arad in the early years of his captivity. The family received some letters of Ron's during the exchange for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev and have kept them private until now. Now, to commemorate the 25th year of Arad's captivity, they are making excerpts available to the public.

JPost has some of the excerpts:

In a letter dated November 1, 1986, Arad wrote: “And now for those most dear to me, Tami and Yuval, I am trying to forget you; every memory of you only grabs me by the throat. But know this, I love you, and it seems you are the only reason that prevents me from imagining the worst.
“I promise you at least this: A. I will return. One year? Two? B. Never again will I leave you, even if I will have to give up flying. C. We will have a warm home, loving and good as we once had.”
The kidnapped soldier, whose fate is still unknown, also attempted to pass hints of his whereabouts through his various notes, which he jotted down on the backs of pages ripped from inside a book.
Arad’s family received the letters as part of a deal between Israel and Hezbollah that also saw the return of the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Arad’s family had held on to the journal privately, and decided to release excerpts to commemorate the 25 years since his capture.
One other entry, undated, was also addressed to Arad’s wife.
“Once again, to Tami. Last night I dreamt of you and it was magnificent. Just the two of us meeting after a long day on the grass, talking like we always do, and suddenly I was back with you. Waking up from this was very difficult, believe me. But this [dream] at least gave me a few minutes of happiness.”

Ridiculous Israeli Supreme Court Decision

The Israeli Supreme Court has allowed one of the kidnappers of Ron Arad, Mustafa Dirani, to sue the State of Israel.

According to a Kikar Shabbos report, MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari has made an official urgent request to various ministers that the Syrian and 2 Iranian citizens that were arrested as part of the Gaza Flotilla not be released with all the others.

Rather, they should be held in exchange for the bones of Our Man in Damascus, Eli Cohen, and in exchange for information about missing navigator Ron Arad.

These flotilla people are not important people - they are not government ministers or ranking soldiers in Syrian and Iranian armies, so their value is practically worthless. The Syrians and Iranians would turn it into an international incident, but would very quickly be willing to sacrifice these nobodies. But we have to try something, and here this "cards" have fallen right into our hands. Maybe if we take these now, and more come along at other times, perhaps they will add up to be enough at some point...

Happy 52nd birthday, Ron Arad.

May you be freed soon, and next year be able to celebrate with your family.

See Lion of Zion for wishes with a musical tribute..

Yesterday's deal of a body swap for a missing dead Israel civilian for two dead Hezbollah and one sick Lebanese also included other information not yet made public.

Rumor has it that the information includes information on Ron Arad's fate.

While the info is still not public so we have no idea what it is or how reliable it is, today marks a special day. Today is the 21st anniversary of Ron Arad's captivity.

I hope that this day brings us closer to knowing what happened to Ron Arad and bringing him home, alive or dead.