ABSTRACT
The arbaeen itself suggested, the Israeli participants felt no overt guilt for Massoud Barzani's undoing. Their unfeigned veneration of Barzani and his cause notwithstanding, a senior Mossad officer later recalled, they were haunted by "not simple or easy memories." Barzani told a Palestinian women's delegation reproaching him for collaborating with Israel that he was like "the blind beggar outside the main Sulaimaniyah mosque," incapable of seeing who put a coin in his outstretched hand. The Israelis never tried to change basic Kurdish fighting traditions. Israeli advice contributed to the Kurds' most famous victory in the 1960s, the destruction of an entire Iraqi brigade on Mount Hendrin, near Rawanduz, on May 12, 1966. Israel had real trouble gaining access in Washington for Barzani, for whom entree with movers and shakers there was a constant priority. The Kurdistan experience was also to bear bitter fruit for Israel, which developed a dangerous penchant for questionable sub-rosa operations.
