Plot To Poison Jews At Restaurants Proceeding Unevenly Amid Lockdown

The report did not identify the restaurants.

Beirut, April 12 – A Shiite terrorist group that planned an elaborate scheme to kill the patrons in kosher establishments in Israel, North America, and Europe reported little progress of late, an intelligence documents reveal, as the effort began just as the current pandemic forced authorities to shutter many of those establishments to limit the pathogen’s spread.

Pages of a Mossad report leaked Sunday morning indicate that Hezbollah, the Iran proxy that effectively governs Lebanon, aimed to help its patron flex its global muscles in the face of tightening American sanctions, with a plot to target Jews at various restaurants, in keeping with the organization’s preference for Israeli interests, which it defines as Jews anywhere in the world. The plan called for recruiting waitstaff at more than three dozen such businesses, or arranging the hire as waitstaff of already-recruited agents, who would then contaminate the food served only to visibly-Jewish customers, during the pre-Passover period when more Jews eat out amid depletion of their non-kosher-for-Passover foodstuffs. Execution of the scheme faltered when such businesses dismissed their servers and shut down their to-stay space in favor of delivery-only operations. The leaked segments of the report did not identify the restaurants, and it remains unclear from the available materials whether the Mossad has made specific determinations in that regard.

The report explained the choice of waitstaff as the preferred operatives and not, for example, kitchen personnel, as stemming from two main considerations: one, the goal of targeting only Jews, the identity of which a kitchen worker might not discern from behind closed doors; and two, less attention from health inspection regimes that focus on preparation and handling of food, as opposed to delivery of the product to the customer at the table. The first of those considerations requires extra attention, analysts note, given that most successful kosher operations attract non-Jewish clientele as well.

“Outside certain New York neighborhoods and some other pockets, the number of Jews in a given area is usually not enough to sustain a kosher business,” explained consultant Oyva Avoy. “That means a Shiite terrorist entity that wants the most bang for its cyanide buck will need to focus on restaurants that serve a mixed customer base, which necessitates a way to weed out the non-Jews as non-targets. What’s more, it’s likely easier to recruit or manipulate the hiring of an operative at place that also serves a lot of non-Jews.”

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