AP Photo

In recent years the Israeli media have been in love with a government official by the name of Meir Dagan. Over and over, the press waxed emotional over the clandestine work of the head of the Mossad. Again and again it hinted, starry-eyed, at astounding feats carried out by Dagan's amazing boys (all attributed to foreign media reports, of course). Everything was cloaked in a glorious veil of secrecy. The rumormongers had it that since Dagan took over the espionage agency, it has gone back to being its true self. Now, they say, it is once again the Mossad that eliminates and assassinates, the Mossad that pursues and rescues, the Mossad that will redeem the State of Israel.

But after a single press conference in Dubai, that picture has been turned upside...