What exactly is an “Israeli vulture”???

I subscribe to Harper’s Magazine–the full flesh version–and also get a Harper’s Weekly Review in my email. The Review resembles Harper’s deservedly renowned, startling and eccentric one-page Findings column (it appears on the last page of each issue; you might want to pick up a copy and take a look; you’ll be astounded).

The Weekly Review, though, is more…what shall I say? temporal? That is, the one I got today notes the World Health Organization’s alarm about the Zika virus. So in a sense these reviews have more of a resemblance to current newspaper headlines than to the Findings columns.

But still, every once in a while I’ll see something that causes my mouth to drop open, as it does every month when I read Findings. And here’s today’s big Harper’s Huh?:

U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon negotiated the release of an Israeli vulture that had been detained on suspicion of spying for Mossad.

If I were anything like an investigative journalist, I’d look into this. But I’m not; I’m just a reader endlessly susceptible to wonderment. Ergo, I’m not even going to ask the big question: Is “vulture” a peculiar code word for an alleged Mossad operative, or a robot, or a drone? Or is it a…you know, a Big Bird? An avian? A flying fowl with feathers?

And if it is, how exactly does it spy (allegedly) for Israel?

This entry was posted in The Facts of Life. Bookmark the permalink.