The most recent cover story was the seizure on Wednesday of large quantities of weapons on a commercial ship that was boarded by commandos 100 miles at sea and towed to an Israeli port.

It was a wonderfully staged event. Israeli police surrounded the ship standing at intervals of about five feet. They were facing the camera and the ship and not in the direction of any threat. They were very visual props.

It’s hard at this point to know the real story behind the weapons. There is enough now to give the impression this event was not all it seems to be. It feels as if the Israelis are trying too hard to market Iran as the bad guy. At a minimum the Israelis do not have their story straight.

In the press conference given by the Israeli military, the briefer said the cargo had gone through Syria. That was strange since if the weapons had been in Syria, the could have been trucked to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Then the story changed.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli President said, “The army successfully captured a ship that seems to have come from Iran and was heading to Syria and to Hezbollah.”

Then we received a degree of investigative reporting.

Newsmax Report reported: “An employee of the company's chartering department who would not identify himself said the ship had been bound from Egypt to Cyprus and from there to Lebanon and Turkey.”

We saw no evidence that the destination was to be Hezbollah, but the Israeli spokesmen were absolutely certain.

To add to the feel of something staged, Israel quickly declared the ship and crew had no knowledge of the weapons, and they were released on Wednesday.

This incident has to be seen in light of a similar situation that took place in January. In that case, Israel notified the U.S. that a certain ship was transporting arms to Hamas. The U.S. Navy boarded the ship and did find some weapons. After two days, however, the U.S. released the ship and an American spokesman said they had received information that the cargo was not for Hamas.

Israel has set aside $150,000 to pay bloggers to counter anti-Israeli web stuff. I’m giving a blogger a chance to make a little money.

Sam Gardiner is a retired Colonel in the United States Air Force