A beautiful and powerful interlude of Sim Shalom from Gil Ladin;   and visit his website for more great jazz and links to other Israeli performers.

On the Mossad / Dubai front, which is looking increasingly like an effort by the Rudd government to deflect attention from unpopular local stances, Greg Sheridan has an excellent update entitled Expelling Israeli diplomat was a confected, self-serving exercise.  Stephen Smith’s performance would do Captain Renault at  Rick’s Cafe proud.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu visits Canada where Prime Minister Harper is impressively supportive of Israel.

Earlier this year the assassination of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai and the subsequent information given by the Dubai police that more than 27 people travelling on false passports created world headlines for many weeks. It became an issue for Australia when four of the false passports were those of Australians who had made Aliyah in recent years (see more here and here).

 At the time, the Australian government called in Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem for a dressing down, sent three AFP officers to Israel (but apparently not to Dubai) to investigate and after Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat in late March, there were talks that Australia would follow suit (see more) but until yesterday, nothing had materialised.

 Yesterday Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith made a statement to the House of Representatives on the issue. He declared:

 “Firstly, and very importantly, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that those Australian passport holders indentified by Dubai authorities were anything other than innocent victims of identity theft.

 “Secondly, the passports in question were deliberately counterfeited and cloned for use. The high quality of these counterfeited passports points to the involvement of a State intelligence service;

 “Thirdly, these investigations and advice have left the Government in no doubt that Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of these passports” (see more).

 The Australian Government is not prepared to release the evidence it is relying upon which makes one wonder just how compelling it could be. At the time that Australia sent the AFP officers to Tel Aviv I questioned whether they would not be serving the Australian public better by travelling to the scene of the crime, Dubai and yet the AFP headed elsewhere. Since when was any country charged with the task of the judge and jury to proclaim Israel’s guilt?

 In his statement, FM Smith declared, “after careful deliberation, the Government has asked that a member of the Israeli Embassy be withdrawn from Australia.” He continued that “The Department conveyed the Government’s deep disappointment over Israeli involvement in this affair”. Again, a guilty verdict is handed down. 

 FM Smith did reiterate the Government’s support of Israel and finished his speech by stating, “we now look forward to working to restore the highest standards of trust in our relationship with Israel”.

 Later in the day, appearing on ABC radio, Alexander Downer, a former Foreign Minister under the Howard Government stated, “Intelligence services around the world do this sort of thing the whole time. But to start going around expelling them, well I think that is an overreaction” (see more).

 Downer also offered a possible reason why Australia would have taken these steps, declaring that it has something to do with Australia’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, which relies heavily on the acceptance of Arab States. He said, “The reason why Australia has suddenly become so aggressive over it … is not of course a point of principle at all here, this is because of the Security Council campaign. And in an effort to try to beat Finland and Luxemburg, the Australian Government is going out of its way to ingratiate itself to other countries in the Middle East, to build up its credentials with the Gulf Cooperation Council and other, other Middle Eastern countries. So this is a good way of doing it. That’s what’s driven this. It’s not, not a point of principle. Israel is not the only country that engages in this sort of behaviour, frankly. So it’s a bit rich to single out Israel.”

 Downer’s comments quickly made their way into most of the Israeli press. Comments made by Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop were also cited. She said, “in the absence of proof, it would be appropriate to reprimand, appropriate to chastise the Israeli government”. But she said the Government had gone too far. “The Government is facing an election. The Government is also seeking to pursue a seat on the Security Council. The Government is keen to curry favour within the Arab community” (see more).

 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has today defended the decision declaring, “there was no alternative course of action” (see more).

 FM Smith has also responded by saying the Opposition is turning a blind eye to Israel’s abuses. Of the Opposition he declared, “They are not fit to manage our national security interest… We will not… stand idly by and turn a blind eye to the shredding of our national security interest, to the abuse of our passport system and to the trampling of our sovereignty” (see more).

 He revealed that Julie Bishop had been given the same briefing as he had from security agencies and therefore found her response “frankly extraordinary”. However, in the absence of any real evidence being revealed to the public, the differences between the interpretations of Bishop and Smith are what makes this an extraordinary scenario and given this situation, some transparency on behalf of the government would assist in unravelling what looks like a very sticky political mess.

 Federal Member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby released a statement declaring, “I do not agree with the government’s decision to remove an Israeli diplomat from Canberra. Neither France, Germany or Ireland have asked for an Israeli diplomat to be withdrawn as a result of the Dubai affair” (see more).

 Naturally it made front page news of our two local broadsheets. Please read ‘Israel envoy expelled on identity theft’ by Jason Koutsoukis and Kirsty Needham on page 1 of The Age as well as Michelle Grattan’s offering, ‘Expulsion right but risky’. This online article also contains a poll at the bottom asking the question, “Do you think relations between Australia and Israel will be permanently damaged by revelations Israel faked Australian passports?” The Australian, the Herald Sun and Sky News all have polls asking variations of the question about Australia’s decision to expel an Israeli diplomat, so feel free to vote! The ZCV has its own poll running but I am assuming it will yield very different results to that of the newspapers.

 Please also read the Age’s letters page, where there was one letter in favour of the expulsion and one very reasonable letter by Dr. Bill Anderson against it. To cap things off, the Age punished its readers with not one but two very unfunny Tandberg cartoons.

 The tragedy of the overall coverage of the Age is the fact that for the best part of the past decade the Age has chosen not to avail its readers of the monstrous barbarism of Hamas and the cause it espouses. Readers of this page will be aware of the many stories that the Age Middle East correspondence fails to cover which could give some meaning to why the demise of the Hamas terrorist Mabhouh will not be missed among those Israelis and those Palestinians who yearn for peace in the region. Let’s make no mistake, the terrorist Mabhouh and his Hamas masters are at the heart of this story but the Age ignores their deeds on a routine basis.  

 The front page story of the Australian was by Mark Dodd and John Lyons entitled ‘Mossad official is sent packing’. The second page includes an article entitled ‘Mossad’s man in Canberra has to go’ which details the supposed intricacies of having a Mossad agent in Australia.

 Please also read the standard ‘Jewish leaders bemoan reaction’. This article, quoting Jewish communal leaders, was a step-up from the article which was the leading story on news.com.au for most of last night quoted “Jewish Australian political activist” Anthony Loewenstein as their only comment from the community. Yes, this is the same guy that referred to Tzipi Livni as a “he” and placed Haifa in Southern Lebanon in earlier editions of his book. Enough said?

 Please read Greg Sheridan’s piece from the Australian entitled ‘Badly misjudged action will have a political cost’ where he charges that this was a “very poor, very feeble decision by the government”. In reference to FM Smith’s citations of the response of Britain, France, Germany and Ireland, Sheridan writes “yet of these only the British have expelled an Israeli diplomat and that was the action of a dying government desperately casting around for minority support. Surely the Rudd government is more mature and worldly than the most desperate days of the dying Gordon Brown interregnum?”

 Please also read, Alan Gold’s Op-Ed piece from the Australian entitled ‘Smith went too far by expelling Israeli diplomat’ where he asks, “Can Smith put his hand on his heart and claim that no Australian spy has used a foreign passport”?

 Melbourne’s most popular newspaper, the Herald Sun, went with the Socceroos for the front page and instead relegated the report on this issue to page seven. These articles do not appear online, but please read their editorial entitled ‘With friends like this…’ from today’s paper.

 If that was not enough excitement for one day, our broadsheets both published a story that broke yesterday by the Guardian alleging that Israel offered to sell apartheid South Africa nuclear weapons in a secret meeting in 1975. This is according to memos and minutes that have been declassified and obtained by an academic writing a book on the issue. Apparently Shimon Peres, who was defence minister at the time met with P.W Botha, his South African counterpart, and offered weaponry in ‘three sizes’. These three sizes are believed to be referring to conventional, chemical and nuclear warheads.

 The Australian’s Abraham Rabinovich writes an article entitled ‘Israel’s nuclear link to apartheid’. The headline seems to suggest that Israel was somehow involved in decades of apartheid due to these supposed business dealings. The Age’s offering was a reprint of the Guardian article entitled ‘Revealed: Israeli bid to sell nukes’. The last sentence of the piece is probably the most telling in revealing the author’s own bias. It reads, ‘South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, possibly with Israeli assistance’. After an entire argument built on an interpretation of a supposed meeting, it is interesting that this journalist saw it fit to make such a wild accusation without even producing a scrap of evidence.

 Shimon Peres’ office declared, “Israel has never negotiated the exchange of nuclear weapons with South Africa. There exists no Israeli document or Israeli signature on a document that such negotiations took place” (see more). They said that there was “no basis in reality for the claims” published in the Guardian and that their conclusions were “based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts”.

 This is not the first time a report in the Guardian about Israel has been able to gain so much traction based on so little fact (see more) and it certainly will not be the last. Since the Age and the Guardian seem to have the same agenda, it is no surprise that the Age went with this story while it has routinely ignored numerous stories of heavy weaponry being smuggled into Hamas controlled Gaza and Hezbollah controlled Lebanon and the warlike ambitions of both terrorist groups. Surely, both newspapers don’t believe their readers to be complete idiots?

PM Rudd and Steven Smith are no doubt mulling whether Australia should initiate any further response to the Dubai passport affair.   The Australian in an excellent article here suggests that Australia has already done quite enough.  The article notes that “The Opposition Leader (Tony Abbott) wants the Rudd government to ignore the precedent set by Gordon Brown’s government in London, which expelled an Israeli diplomat as punishment for the use of British passports in the Dubai killing.”

The article also points out a self-evident observation that was wilfully ignored by the British government and press ie that every secret service uses false passports.  The article states “Sources have also told The Weekend Australian that Australian intelligence agencies use forged passports in their clandestine work.  Analysts believe the agency most likely to do this is the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, which runs secret operations in numerous countries.  Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop told The Weekend Australian: “It would be naive in the extreme to believe a foreign power never used a forged passport. The Australian government would have to be very careful to ensure that Australian agencies never used forged passports.”

PM Rudd is no doubt aware that an aggressive Australian act against Israel based on the passport affair would be met with Obama approval, and would further any Rudd ambition for Islamic country approval for a security council seat.  But on the other hand, he will hopefully follow the reasoning of the conclusion of the article ie “The French, German and Irish governments, whose passports were also misused in Dubai, have not expelled any Israeli diplomats.  Analysts believe the Brown government may have been motivated by a desire to move domestic scandals out of the news agenda and to seek the votes of anti-Israeli Britons in the forthcoming British election.”

The whole world may not be watching, but quite a few will be examining PM Rudd and Stephen Smith’s stance in the coming days regarding Israel. 

Meanwhile the double standards employed against Israel versus other countries including our own Australia is reinforced by the Saturday Sydney Morning Herald.   While articles related to Israel get their usual major billing and bold headlines,  a short article “Soldiers could be charged over raid”  is squeezed to the side by a colour photo of “A big night out: drinking, dancing, fingerprinting”.   In the article, we are told that 6 Afghan civilians were killed by Australian commandos and are being investigated by The Defence Force’s chief military prosecutor.  The article states that “The Herald has also confirmed that investigators did not visit the scene of the incident and did not meet survivors of the attack.  It is understood that late last year, when investigators wanted to go to the scene of the incident, their request was blocked by other military personnel.”    

Does anyone have any illusions that a human rights NGO will carry this further,  any takers that a UN council will pay attention to an incident like this which no doubt has also occurred with U.S, French and other troops.  Now substitute the word Israel for Australia and duck for cover from the brickbats that would be hurled at Israel.     Double Standards lie deep in the heartlands.

The double standard response to the Passport affair reminds me of a local Australian press response to the heroic and successful outrage Raid on Entebbe.  I can still recall being incredulous to read criticism of the Israeli so-called “invasion of Uganda’s national airspace”.

Greg Sheridan has followed up with an excellent summary of Obama’s aggressive stance against Israel here.  Netanyahu shows diplomatic skill in  distancing himself from citicism against Obama.

Galus Australia has a great humorous take with a Mossad Passport Appeal.  Still waiting for the Israeli supermarket spoof with the assasination of supermarket prices.

The Dubai passport affair has been the topic of interest in this blog over several days - not just because of the twists and turns or the Australian passport involvement or the mealy response of Rudd / Smith.  Also not because of the expected double standards and hypocrisy shown by the Israel-bashers.

No, in part it has been an eye-opener because it has been gratifying to see clear and forthright comments emerge from a variety of sources, often non-Jewish, rejecting the handringing anti-Israel bromides from many in the Western press and governments.

On excellent example is the article by Paul Howes, National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union.  In his article in the 7th March edition of the Daily Telegraph Dubai killing strikes blow for decency, Howes strikes some telling blows of his own -  “Some journalists and commentators have taken to referring to al-Mabhouh as a “Palestinian militant” implying therefore, that he, and indeed Hamas, as a whole are some kind of national liberation movement - not unlike Fretilin in East Timor or the American revolutionaries of 1776.  It’s unfortunate that so few of them seem to have sat down and read Hamas’ own weird, extreme conspiracy theory, fascist racist charter.

Amongst other things, the charter repeatedly names the Freemasons, Lions and Rotary clubs as Zionist fronts, saying that all are actually spying outfits using Jewish money to take control of the world and make movies and create other PR events to, amongst other things, undermine the morality of the good Muslim woman!   So categorising al-Mabhouh and Hamas as “militants” or “national liberation fighters” is not just plain wrong, it provides a cover for Hamas to hide the reality of this ugly Islamo-fascist terrorist organisation under the cloak of international law…. 

Howes continues ” Some have argued that if Israel has illegally used Australian passports, this is not the action of a friend. Maybe.  But in my view, friends stand by each other in the good times and the bad, and a friend is someone who lends a hand when the going gets tough.  That’s why I’m proud that our nation has played a small, and accidental role, in the removal of the terrorist al-Mabhouh from our planet.”

All in all, Howes tells it like it is - and its uplifting to hear this from the Secretary of the Australia Workers Union.

And then what about the excellent article the day before in the Australian from Andrew Roberts.  In the article, entitled Israel; victim of double standards after slaying, the English historian reminds us that - “When Britain was at war, Winston Churchill sanctioned the assassination by its Special Operations Executive of the SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the capture (and killing if necessary) of General Heinrich Kreipe on Crete; ditto Erwin Rommel. Just as with some Mossad operations, such as the disaster in Amman in 1997 when agents were captured after failing to kill Khaled Meshal of Hamas, not all Churchill’s hits were successful. But the British state was not de-legitimised in any way as a result.

The intelligence agents of states sometimes operating with direct authority, sometimes not, have carried out many assassinations and assassination attempts in peacetime without the legitimacy of those states being called into question, or their being described as “rogue”. In 1985 the French Deuxieme Bureau sank Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior trawler, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, without anyone denouncing France as a rogue state. Similarly, in 2006, polonium 210 was used to murder Alexander Litvinenko without Putin’s Russia being described as “illegitimate”.   That kind of language is only reserved for Israel, even though neither Pereira nor Litvinenko posed the danger to French and Russian citizens that was posed to Israelis by the activities of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.”  

Roberts clearly points out the double standards inherent in the criticism of Israel…. 

So key articles in the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the Australian get it.  Two out of three aint bad!

So much has happened and so much has been written about Israel in the media over the last few weeks that it is virtually impossible to cover all of the angles in what is known as the false passports affair.

Indeed, there has been so much conflicting commentary dressed up as “truth” and “facts” that the already muddied waters have left many observers totally confused about what really happened and the real truth is that we might never find out what happened in Dubai on 19 January 2010. 

It is not, therefore, worth repeating what has already been written in the papers over and over for recent weeks in relation to the murder of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai or the subsequent information given by the Dubai police that more than 27 people travelling on false passports were suspected to be involved in the assassination. The fact that three Australians who had made Aliyah found their world turned upside down when they were listed as suspects because their passports had been forged moved the issue back to the forefront of our local news headlines.

Let us concentrate on what we know as fact and not on rumour or guesswork.

A Hamas terrorist was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of two Israelis (he openly boasted about this) and was suspected of procuring heavy arms to smuggle into Gaza from Iran.

According to Dubai Police, al-Mabhouh was carrying five false passports at the time of his death and he entered the country on one of them (see more).

Three people have been arrested so far in connection with al-Mabhouh’s death – all of them Palestinians. Ahmad Hasnin and Anwar Shekhaiber, both members of Hamas’ rival Fatah, were arrested in Jordan and have been extradited to Dubai. The third man arrested, Nahro Massoud, is a Hamas security operative who was arrested in Damascus (see more). While journalists are quick to make a link between Fatah and the Mossad, suggesting that both groups would have a vested interest in collaboration, most are reticent about how a Hamas operative entered the picture (see more).

After a hiatus of several weeks, Dubai Police Chief, Lieutenant General Dahi Tamim Khalfan suddenly announced the discovery that several suspects filmed in and around the deceased’s hotel had entered on fake passports of various nationalities bearing the names of Israeli citizens. He finally declared that Mossad was involved in the killing of al-Mabhouh. “It is 99%, if not 100%, that Mossad is standing behind the murder” (see more).

Never mind that General Tamim is talking about a renowned professional security outfit. It is one thing to suggest that the Mossad would behave in such a clumsy manner but it is a bit of a stretch to claim that three of the suspected assassins, including one travelling on an Australian passport, fled Dubai to Iran on an earlier trip to scope out the area (see more) and that this is typical behaviour of the Mossad.

The Dubai police chief certainly has hours and hours of video footage of people walking around a hotel foyer in shonky disguises. The crazy pictures have become the key evidence in pinning the guilt on the Israelis. Boaz Guttman, a former officer with Israel’s National Fraud Unit, who believes Dubai police do not have any serious evidence that could be presented in court. He put it this way: “Investigators can’t march into the office of the Israel police inspector-general and show him a copy of (London’s) The Sunday Times newspaper… Rumours don’t count as evidence” (see more).

General Tamim has continually boasted that Dubai has more than ten thousand surveillance cameras deployed and that the investigation “included analysing hundreds of hours of video recordings, as well as monitoring around 300 taxi drivers in order to know what cars were used by the accused, not to mention reviewing the records of around fifteen thousand Europeans who visit Dubai daily out of a total of 48 million travellers who visit Dubai each year” (see more).

General Tamim has all of this wonderful surveillance footage at his fingertips but is he really a good cop? How is it that al-Mabhouh, a man suspected of trading arms, was able to enter his country on a false passport and carry out arms deals on its soil? Why has this technology not been used to assist in the world’s fight against illegal arms smuggling and terrorism? Surely his new friends down at Interpol could make use of some of this information?

With no concrete evidence and a police force that is apparently selective in its law enforcement priorities, it could not be very comforting to know that General Tamim not only has a problem Israelis but he also has a problem with Jews. This week he declared that the police would be able to recognise Israeli dual-citizens trying to enter Dubai by discerning “physical features and the way they speak.” One Israeli government official put it best when he sarcastically asked, “how are they going to know if someone is Israeli? Long noses? Pockets full of money?” (see more). Of course most of the media has played down this racist stereotyping, even our own broadsheet, The Australian where that part only rated a two-sentence mention. The issue was not even on the Age’s agenda.

The attempts to play down Tamim’s racist bent ignore what he actually said in Arabic where it was reported that he said ‘he will train our personnel in the passport of the forms and features of the Jewish people and their names, noting that no one can hide their features of Jewishness. He asked the appropriate departments to prepare nationality and residency sessions to familiarise the staff with [Jewish] forms and names, especially since most Jews hold dual passports [with Israel]’ (see more). Thanks General Tamim, Next time I travel, I’ll do my best to hide my horns!

In light of what we do know about the affair, our local broadsheet has adopted a questionable stance. Ignoring many of the undisputed facts, the Age publishes vile cartoons and op-eds which accept that Israel is complicit even when the investigation is still continuing on several fronts.

While many of the usual suspects around town and in the media have jumped to conclusions in their haste to condemn Israel and Israel alone for its perceived involvement in the passport affair, it has been most disappointing to read that some old friends have also rushed to judgement on the flimsiest of evidence. It seems that it is now the way of the world that such principles as the rule of law and innocence until found guilty have been thrown out of the window where Israel and the Jewish people are concerned. Rumour and innuendo are now enough to convict us.

Strangely, not many news agencies are reporting a story that came out in the Arab press on Tuesday that according to a preliminary Hamas investigation, al-Mabhouh was likely being tracked by agents from Jordan and Egypt. According to Mahmoud Nasser, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, ‘Mabhouh had proof that an Arab security force was focusing its efforts on carrying out a strike again Islamic resistance (see more here and here).

In the meantime, the Australian Federal Police sent three policeman to interview the three Australians whose passports where allegedly falsified. They are to be interviewed not as suspects but as “witnesses to a crime” (see more). There are many that believe that sending police officers over to Israel is a waste of time. As Boaz Guttman put it, “without belittling their capabilities, all of this is a show put on for domestic consumption by Britain and Australia, to show that they are doing something” (see more).

Perhaps the AFP will get something out of this trip other than making headlines for an alleged hit-and-run accident involving an AFP car and a cyclist but would they not be better serving the Australian public better by travelling to the scene of the crime, Dubai? After all, that is where the so-called evidence is and where some independent forensic work might produce some clues as to who really faked the passports.

None of this is to suggest that stealing peoples’ identity through falsified passports is a pleasant thing but the rush to judgement against Israel is equally unpleasant, premature and out of character with the established norms of fair treatment which we have come to expect in the lucky country.

The Elder of Ziyon blog has provided important input from an Arabic interview in the Khaleej Times with Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the ubiquitous Commander in Chief of Dubai Police.  Tamim has almost single-handedly fed the news of Israel’s responsibility for the assassination,  variably saying that Israel was 99% or 100% likely to be responsible. 

Despite Israel’s involvement, including with the 26 passports being far from proven, our Rudd government and others have rushed to agree with everything Tamim has said, as if he is a wise and impartial arbiter of the facts.  Do friends regard friends as guilty until proven innocent ??

We now know that Tamim is trying to exclude anyone with a dual passport that includes Israel.  But is that all he said ?

No,  in the Arabic interview he goes on to say “Israel is a rogue state that goes beyond international legitimacy and laws. Its leaders have sick mentalities, and they need psychologists, saying that its use of passports shows great arrogance and contempt for the world. ”

“(Tamim said that) the leaders of “Israel” have blood on their hands the blood of others throughout history, pointing out that the “Israeli” people are human beings like any other people who want to be loved and open to others but that the successive governments, the Governments of bloodshed and assassinations, and wars and the Governments of the occupation and aggression, are not interested in peace in the world at all.

He added that the vanity which haunts the “Israeli” mentality stems from the time of Pharaoh, and their hate comes up to this day and age.

He said that the entire world should study the mentality of the “Israeli” leaders throughout history. Their sick psyches needs to be analyzed by psychology professors, who need to examine why they launch crises, and why they brought on themselves hate from others, since the time of Moses, peace be upon him.”

…..
This ranting is from the Chief of Dubai Police!!  This is the man that Rudd / Smith and the other Western countries have relied on for their criticism of Israel.  Will we see the full interview with Tamim in our newspapers or will it be sanitised to preserve the credibility of the Chief ?

Leaving out statements that don’t suit is “Denial of fact by Omission”

There is something peculiar about the apparent Australian government response to the killing of the Hamas terror operative in Dubai.

I say “apparent” because when the Sydney Morning Herald breathlessly and excitedly reveals (Saturday edition) that Prime Minister Rudd is “furious” about the supposed Mossad action, it’s hard to know how much is reality and how much is the Fairfax clan trying to ratchet up the emotion. 

However, the idea that “friends don’t forge friends passports” seems to have become an Australian government mantra, and if Jason Koustoukis (also in Saturdays paper) is correct in suggesting that this may result in Australia abstaining rather than voting against a US General Assembly resolution regarding Israel in Gaza, then it would seem that the Rudd / Smith line is being influenced.

Sure, it looks likely that Israel was responsible, but it isn’t proven by any means, despite what our good friends in Dubai are saying.

The paradox is striking.  On one day, Rudd / Smith bignote the “Islamist Jihadist” threat to Australia;  the very next day, the Rudd / Smith response to an act that clearly has eliminated an important Islamist perpertrator of violence is to focus solely on the passport process and ignore the positive aspect of eliminating the Hamas operative.  As a non-Jewish work colleague said to me,  “I’m delighted the Hamas guy was killed, whoever did it.  But in the paper, you don’t even read who the Hamas guy was or what he had done”. 

Surely every spy/cover group from the CIA to MI5 and our own ASIO uses different tactics to get the job done.  Even (believe it or not) using forged passports.   Yes, it’s a negative if Israel used Australian passports, and Australia needs to make it clear that this is not a sanctioned activity, but let’s get some perspective.

Two articles express this dissonance quite well.   First, read Caroline Glick’s article When rhetoric rules the roost …  and while you read it, wonder whether where you see the word “Europe” you can think “Rudd / Smith”

As Glick writes …….”more often than not, the concerted positions of the EU member nations have nothing to do with any of their national interests.

Take the EU’s initial response to the killing of Hamas terror-master Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19. A senior terrorist engaging in the illegal purchase of illicit arms from Iran for Hamas-controlled Gaza is killed in his hotel room. The same Dubai authorities who had no problem with hosting a wanted international terrorist worked themselves into a frenzy condemning his killing. And of course, despite the fact that any number of governments, (Egypt and Jordan come to mind), and rival terrorist organizations, (Fatah, anyone?) had ample reason to wish to see Mabhouh dead, Dubai’s police chief Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim blamed Israel.

Not only did he blame Israel, to substantiate his claims, Tamim released what he said was video footage of alleged Mossad operatives who entered Dubai with European and Australian passports.

Relying only on Tamim’s allegations, EU leaders went into high dudgeon. Ignoring the nature of the operation, the basic lack of credibility of the source of information, and the interests of Europe in defeating jihadist terrorism in the Middle East and worldwide, the chanceries of Europe squawked indignantly and threatened to cut off intelligence cooperation with Israel.

In Britain for instance, Foreign Office sources told the Daily Telegraph, “If the Israelis were responsible for the assassination in Dubai, they are seriously jeopardizing the important intelligence-sharing arrangement that currently exists between Britain and Israel.”

It reportedly took the intervention of the highest echelons of Europe’s intelligence agencies to get their hysterical politicians and diplomats to stop blaming and threatening Israel. After being dressed down, on Monday, the chastened EU foreign ministers abstained from mentioning Israel by name in their joint condemnation of the alleged use of European passports by the alleged operatives who allegedly killed the terrorist Mabhouh.

And lucky they held their tongues. Because on Tuesday, Tamim claimed that after the hit, at least two of the alleged members of the alleged assassination team departed Dubai for Iran. It’s hard to imagine Mossad officers feeling safer in Iran than in Dubai at any time and certainly it is hard to see why they would flee to Iran after killing an Iranian-sponsored terrorist.

What the initial European reaction to Tamim’s allegations shows is that blaming Israel has become Europe’s default foreign policy. It apparently never occurred to the Europeans that Israel might not be responsible for the hit. And it certainly never occurred to them that cutting off intelligence ties with Israel will harm them more than Israel.

They didn’t think of the latter, of course, because Europe has no idea of what its interests are. All it knows is how to sound off authoritatively.”

The rest of the article is also very clear in its thoughts.

Then there is this excellent article by Andrew Landeryou Use my Passport: Hamas mass murderer got what he deserved, all else is trivia. 

He notes “Being a victim of a one-off identity theft is obviously not nice. And we can entirely understand the confusion and unhappiness about the individuals in that position. We’re sure not even the knuckle-headed authorities in the Dubai one-man dictatorship will hold them responsible for the death of the Hamas arms-buyer.  But after everyone has had a Bex and a good lie down, then surely the paramount issue is the need for Israel to protect itself from those who wish to terrorise it into madness, blast Jerusalem with nukes and drive six million Jews into the sea.”

Dubai is clearly milking this affair for as much as it can, drip feeding new information on a daily basis to a willing press.  But just what game is Dubai playing?  The Wall Street Journal provides insight here into the key role Dubai plays in trade with Iran,  acting as a go-between for important deals.   Another article describes Dubai as Iran’s back door and an absolute sieve for embargoed products to get to Iran.  As it says “Iran’s footprints are everywhere in Dubai. About 8,000 Iranian businesses, and at least 1,200 trading companies, operate in the emirate, according to the Iranian Business Council, a Dubai-based group that promotes economic ties.”   One can also well imagine that Iran is more than pleased that the Dubai affair is taking Iran off the front pages, even more so if Israel gets a hammering.  Just maybe, the Iranians might have helped their Dubai pals rig up a few close-circuit TVs and an elaborate sting. Now that would be worth a hundred million petrodollars or so. 

Even if it is eventually proven that the Mossad was responsible, there will be many Jews and non-Jews who will be comfortable that on balance it was a good thing.  And Purim is a reminder that Haman definitely comes off second best .. Hmm Haman, Hamas…  the ears have it.

With Purim and Mardi Gras being close together this year,  let’s check out New Orleans and what’s on this year... including some Klezmer New Orleans Mardi Gras Style

So we may be a bit Rudderless on Dubai, but it’ll all turn out well - just like in Sleepless in Seattle

Robin Shepherd is a good man to have around with his incisive comments related to Israel.  Shepherd also exposes to ridicule the double standards and biases among the elites that Israel has to content with. 

Shepherd’s recent column about the British response to the Dubai affair is a case in point, in which he suggests  that despite the anti-Israel posturing of the BBC, the Guardian and their ilk,  the general populace of Britain are not barking, and instead are expressing support of Israel.  

As written here,  Shepherd says that “There is something very strange going on in Britain, and Israel’s detractors are hopping mad.” … He continues “What vexes them is not so much the use of the passports per se as the fact that the kind of hysterical public furore that we have come to expect whenever a stick presents itself for the beating of Israel has singularly failed to materialise.

On the contrary, large sections of the British press have responded with barely disguised awe at the audacious operation that the Israelis had the balls to carry out.”  For instance Shepherd mentions that “Seumas Milne, a regular columnist for the Guardian and one of the most fanatical opponents of Israel in the British press, was almost tearful at the sheer refusal of both the media and the government to jump to attention in the usual manner.”   Indeed, Shepherd says that the public mood in Britain is quite pro-Israel on this matter, full of admiration. 

I like Shepherd’s analysis that “the battle for Europe’s soul is still an open one. Britain in particular is a 50-50 nation: as much the country of Churchill as of Chamberlain, as much the country of the proud and steadfast defender of democracy as of the mindless appeaser cringing and grovelling before terrorists and tyrannies.   It doesn’t always seem that way, particularly since the elite institutions of this country are so much more in thrall to the thinking of the second of those two alternatives than the first. But there is another Britain, and sometimes it shows its face.  How curious that on precisely the occasion when Britain really does have reason to be critical of the Israelis that different face of Britain should decide to come out and show itself.”

Doesn’t that read well! - Britain is “as much the country of Churchill as of Chamberlain”.  We can only hope that the Churchill side of Britain wins through -  against the Chamberlain elites.

To read more of Shepherd’s excellent daily writings, we have linked to him on the right side of the blog.

And as to the dog that didn’t bark in the night see Sherlock Holmes’ explanation in part 5 of 6 of The Silver Blaze; Arthur Conan Doyle is a fine product of Britain.