British threat to Israel over Dubai Hamas assassination

[Scurrilous]

Britain will consider severing its intelligence-sharing agreement with Israel if Mossad agents are proved to have stolen the identities of British passport holders, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

<snip>

"Ministers are understood to be furious that an alleged hit squad which murdered a Hamas leader in Dubai last month cloned the passports of six unsuspecting Britons, who are now living in fear of reprisals.

Israel, which has not denied involvement in the murder, had previously promised that Mossad, its secret intelligence service, would never use British passports to help its agents carry out covert operations.

Israel's ambassador to the UK was summoned to the Foreign Office to give his explanation as the diplomatic row intensified.

Ron Prosser will meet Sir Peter Ricketts, the permanent under secretary at the Foreign Office, on Thursday where the ambassador is expected to be asked whether Israel played any part in assassination.

Gordon Brown, making his first public comments about the incident, promised a “full investigation” into the passport forgery.

Mossad has been accused by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, of being behind the murder of its military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai on Jan 20.

All of the British passport holders whose identities were stolen live in Israel, meaning Mossad would have had ready access to copies of their travel documents.

A senior Foreign Office source told The Daily Telegraph: “If the Israelis were responsible for the assassination in Dubai, they are seriously jeopardising the important intelligence-sharing arrangement that currently exists between Britain and Israel.

"If it transpires that Israel has been using British passports to assassinate its opponents, the British government will need to give serious consideration to any future cooperation.

"Britain has cut ties with Mossad in the past, and will do so again if the Israelis are found to be acting against British interests."

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Dept summons Israeli ambassador

<snip>

"The Israeli ambassador is to be summoned to the Department of Foreign Affairs to discuss the use of three fake Irish passports by the alleged assassins of a Hamas commander in Dubai last month.

It emerged yesterday that the passports used had genuine numbers. The Department has said two of those passport holders have been notified.

The two people, who live in Ireland, were shocked to learn that their passport numbers had been used, a Department spokesperson said.
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On RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said the Department of Foreign Affairs is working with the gardaí to find the third passport holder.

Mr Martin said the numbers were stolen but the names and photographs do not correspond.

He said the incident has put the security of Irish citizens at risk.

The Minister said it is being taken very seriously and a frank discussion will take place with the Israeli ambassador."

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[Violet_Crumble]

1. Can't blame the British and the Irish for being pissed off about it...

If it is Mossad that's done this, then Britain should go a fair bit further than 'considering' severing any intelligence-sharing agreements, and go ahead and do it. If Mossad didn't learn its lesson when fake New Zealand passports were used a few years back and Israel had to apologise to NZ for it, then it's pretty clear it's never going to change what it does with the fake passports...

[aranthus]

11. Fair enough, if it's true that Mossad did this.

But it's premature to say that they did.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. Of course, but it's a strong possibility given Mossad's history of passport use...

Let's hope that the loudest ones at DU right now (not you, btw) going round and insisting no-one should say the Mossad did it have a serious think about how they're usually amongst the first to rush to come to conclusions if something involves Palestinians or other Arabs, and that in future they wait until ALL the facts are made public :)

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Typical stupidity.

Why wait for an investigation to come to completion?

[Chulanowa]

4. So what's your theory, Aegis?

Wacky coincidence?
Space aliens?
Johnson?

[Tripmann]

5. Heres Aegis theory (from another thread on the matter)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x299065#299074

"This could be an orchestrated Iranian "false flag" attack. Pissed about upcoming sanctions, Iran murders a Hamas leader, Israel is predictably blamed; Hamas steps up rhetoric against Israel, perhaps even attacks; focus is once again placed on any Israeli response, and Iran uses it as distraction."



But why wait for an investigation to come to completion, right Aegis??

[JoDog]

8. I think Aegis has a point

For whatever else Mossad and Shin Bet can be accused of being, they are rarely sloppy. Using easily traceable stolen identities of people directly connected to Israel would be incredibly sloppy.

I'm not saying Israel didn't want this guy dead. Of course they did. But there are countries and entities that would benefit if a wedge was put in between Israel and her allies.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. No, he doesn't. He's attacking anything that even suggests the Mossad being a possibility...

The first article didn't say Mossad had definately done it. The second article says they want to discuss the use of false passports, and both governments have every right to call in the Israeli ambassadors to discuss whatever they like with them. I think it's pretty safe to assume that both governments would have more information and more idea of what's happened than bta does, and that both would like to get to the bottom of what happened...

As for sloppiness, of course Mossad has been sloppy in the past. Haven't you heard of past instances where they got caught red-handed using false passports of citizens of countries that are supposed to be their friends? It happened a few years ago to New Zealand and Israel ended up issuing an apology for it. What Mossad did there was sloppy and incompetent...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Israel_%E2%80%93_New_Zealand_spy_scandal

[Behind the Aegis]

10. "But why wait for an investigation to come to completion"

You (?) and others certainly haven't; Israel is guilty. Unlike you (?) and others, mine was a scenario not an indication of guilt. You (?) and a host of others are waiting for information to prove Israel isn't guilty, to which you (?) and others will then say it is a cover-up. It is as it always is here: Israel is guilty until proved innocent, and even then, they really aren't.

[Tripmann]

16. I hope you can direct me to where I implied the mossad were responsible?

Oh, and your quaint little bastardisation of the english languge i.e. placing a (?) after directing a statement at me is fooling nobody.

The one thing I said on the subject was that everybody was speculating, including you, it was just that your scenatrio was more intricate. unlike you I'm quite willing to let the story run and not point fingers until there is reasonable evidence.

[Behind the Aegis]

17. I hope you can re-read my post.

While you do that, please direct me to where I said Iran was guilty.

[Tripmann]

18. I never claimed you did. I claimed you were speculating.

But lets do an aegis on the subject......

Behind the aegis (?) thinks it was Iran.

Oooooh, its SOOOOO clever.

[Behind the Aegis]

19. Not quite.

But, it is impressive the way you set up your strawmen. I guess you were easily confused.

[Tripmann]

20. And what strawmen would this be??

[Behind the Aegis]

21. "Behind the aegis (?) thinks it was Iran."

Your posts in this thread are nothing but dishonest keystrokes. You accused me of claiming Iran was guilty. You pretend others are just "speculating" when more than few have flat out said Mossad (Israel) is guilty. You also know by placing those "?" I was implying I don't know your position, but because of recent posts I could see how you might hold similar feelings and therefore, didn't say it was your position because I didn't have proof of it. Of course, maybe you really didn't understand that as your example was shit and didn't even remotely mimic mine.

[Tripmann]

22. For the benefit of the others on the thread....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x299065#299259

"Fair enough,just pointing out that your anti-iranian false flag theory is just as speculative as the anti-israel mossad theory. I'd also like to point out the irony of commenting on another posters speculation after you yourself speculated wildly.
Just for the record, I never posted any theory on who was responsible. I do not have enough information.......just like everone else on the thread."

I'm actually one of the few here who thought the mossad was too easy an answer, given how long it took official channels to point the finger. But you're too busy getting your knickers in a twist to even pick up on that.

[Behind the Aegis]

23. Of course, I never said you made a speculation, now did I?

Do you not see a difference between speculating who may or may not be guilty and saying who is guilty? In regards to your twisted knickers, perhaps you should actually read what I wrote and not make up what I wrote or pretend it means something it doesn't.

[Tripmann]

24. Ah, I get it

Thread derailment again.

Amazing coincidence how you only do it in the threads that paint israel in a less than perfect light.

Funny that

[Behind the Aegis]

25. You don't get it.

But, I am not surprised in the least.

"Amazing coincidence how you only do it in the threads that paint israel in a less than perfect light."

Well, that's just a pantload, but then I am sure you knew that as well. Why start posting anything remotely honest when you can make accusations without proof and pretend it is "fact." BTW...my post was the original post to the OP, your's was the derailment along with Chulanowa. Neither of you said anything of substance, just mockery and false allegations. Seems you have the habit of butting into threads to make "observations" that are accusatory.

Funny that.

[Tripmann]

26. Behind the aegis is speculating again

Oh sorry, almost forgot.......

(?)

[Behind the Aegis]

27. Speculating? Stating facts is not "speculating."

Tripmann is projecting again. No "?" needed.

[Tripmann]

36. Au contraire,

My original post in this thread was responding to a request for your theory on the matter.

How IS that theory working out for you, by the way?

[Chulanowa]

30. "Typical stupidity"

Really? That's substance?

I wanted to know your theory. Since I'm dealing with you, I knew whatever theory you had was going to be convoluted and goofy. And frankly, Zombie Johnson makes more sense than your Iran scenario, because.. .well, he'd be a zombie and those bastards just hate the living.

[Tripmann]

37. Got a chuckle out of that myself.

Guess wild speculation on a breaking news event isn't typical stupidity so.

[Chulanowa]

29. Has Israel ever conducted an assassination on a Hamas leader before?

Has it used false information to do so before?
Has Mossad denied involvement in other similar events, while not denying involvement here?

Compared to your scenario, the "mossad did it" scenario is pretty straightforward and makes more sense.

[Chulanowa]

28. Someone needs to shave with Occam's razor

'Cause that's a fucking convoluted plot with the grand goal of Hamas talking more smack.

Idifuckingotic.

But then this IS Aegis we're talking about.

[LeftishBrit]

6. I daresay they will indeed wait!. There are a lot of IFs in all this.

Looks like the Daily Telegraph is trying to create more sensation by implying that typical threats of things that might happen IF something turns out to be the case are actually a fait accompli. It's a pattern lately with the Telegraph (I had a bit of an argument last night on GD with people who'd swallowed hook, line and sinker a Torygraph article implying that some economic conditions and warnings that the EU has put to Greece mean that Greece has already been 'stripped of its sovereignty'.)

[Hardrada]

3. Good for the UK!!

Immer feste druf!

[LeftishBrit]

7. Please translate. Why are you commenting on the UK in German?

[Hardrada]

31. It means "Right on!"

Why do you care?

[azurnoir]

13. Is this what you were referring to?

Always fixed em!

They saw only that, but not what happened,

and heard only what their advantage.

I've already seen at the beginning of the end

and knowing what is coming to an end.

This people, nourished with world Hasse

relieved of the delusion, the lie bare,

they plunge a knife into the street

and then go at each other.

And I shall now look into the future,

then the horizon would be too tight for me.

Because once I see the old gray

and hear the old schnedderedeng.

They are the world given case

. essential to transform the field.

Because this is Germany but above all,

about everything but in the world!

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.textlog.de/39675.html&ei=nJt9S8LREobYM97j_N0K&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DImmer%2Bfeste%2Bdruf!%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3D5Ns

[Hardrada]

32. Probably not.

[azurnoir]

33. I thought it could be fitting

depending on ones POV

[Hardrada]

34. Some people are lucky (perhaps) to have a definite POV.

I just feel like I'm watching a series of bad propaganda movies everyone is cranking out.

[Jim Sagle]

35. Even better for Mossad - if they killed him.

:headbang:

(Sorry, I don't know any foreign languages; otherwise I'd instigate a cute little dialog.)

And as for all of England's bullshit indignation about the passports, it's just a bunch of antisemitic bullshit as everybody damn well knows.

[Chulanowa]

38. Extrajudicial murder RAWKS!

And Britain needs to shut its fucking piehole about its citizens having their identities stolen by people who use them to commit such a murder! Jews are allowed to do that, and anyone who argues HATES JEWS!!!

FUCK YEAH! DEAD ARABS MAN!

:sarcasm:

Frankly Jim, this is the dumbest thing i've seen around here. You're serious?

[Jim Sagle]

40. A dead Hamas leader is not just any dead Arab.

Switch to decaf.

[Chulanowa]

41. Piss-poor logic

Extrajudicial killings are problematic no matter how much you dislike the guy at the other end of the bullet. If you're cool with this, then you have no reasonable argument if Hamas decides to murder some Yisrael Beiteinu party members. Assassination becomes fair play for all parties involved, if that's the case.

[Jim Sagle]

42. Hamas and Israel are at war. Targeting enemy leaders is the norm.

[Chulanowa]

44. Alright

So you DO support the murder of Israel's leaders at the hands of Hamas? And hey, it's war, if a little "collateral damage" gets done, you can't complain, right?

'Course, I figure you're only so mellow about such things when it's Arabs who are getting killed. I suppose we'll see when it happens.

[Dick Dastardly]

45. Sorry, Hamas is a terrorist group. He was a Hamas terrorist.

Israel is not a terrorist group, it is a legitimate country. Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorists. Terror groups and their terrorists have no such rights. To claim as you do terrorists have some type of moral or functional equivalence shows not only ignorance but a skewed moral compass.

Obviously your mellow about attacks on Israel and the targeted killing of Israeli civilians but when Israel does anything to defend itself, even when its on a terrorist with no collateral damage, it becomes an outrage.

[Chulanowa]

51. Did I say it was an outrage?

No, I said it was wrong. I say this because I find assassination - that is to say, MURDER - to be wrong. I'm certainly not mellow about attacks on Israel; I'm making the point to Jim Sagle that if he cheers for this murder, then he needs to cheer for that murder.

Was this dude a terrorist? Yep. Doesn't change the fact that he was murdered. Nor that his murder took place in another "legitimate country." Nor that his murderers have put at risk eight other people by stealing their passport information to do it.

[LeftishBrit]

50. I don't 'support the murder of Israel's leaders at the hands of Hamas'...

but I would prefer Hamas targeting Israeli leaders than Israeli civilians.

Similarly, I would prefer Israel targeting Hamas leaders than bombing Gaza.

[Ken Burch]

39. Stealing the passports of people with dual British-Israeli citizenship

Will hurt those people for the rest of their lives. Any time those people try to get on a plane, they'll probably be kept off and not given an explanation. By you this is no big deal?

And it's not like Mossad(if it WAS them)will do anything to clear the names of those whose passports it stole.

It's things like this that made even Ziva David quit the Mossad, Sagle.

[Jim Sagle]

46. I weep for the trees that were cut down to print the passports.

;)

[Ken Burch]

48. It was never about the trees.

It was about innocent Israelis whose lives were screwed with to no good purpose.

Why couldn't they just come up with imaginary identities?

Why did it have to be stealing those of real people?

And it's not as though any real good will come of this.

[oberliner]

47. Britons whose identity stolen to get new passports

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Britain has offered new passports to six citizens whose identities were used by suspects in a Dubai assassination, hoping to save the Britons from inadvertent arrest under an Interpol alert, an official said on Friday.

Consular staff at the British embassy in Tel Aviv have tracked down the six, all of whom live in Israel, after Dubai police said an alleged hit squad had used their identities when entering the emirate to kill a top Hamas commander.

"We have invited the nationals to come to the consular section in Tel Aviv to get new passports in place of the ones that Dubai police publicized with their identities," embassy spokesman Raffi Shamir said.

"This step will reduce the risk that these people might be inadvertently detained," he added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61I3LT20100219

[Ken Burch]

49. That's nice that that will happen.

They still need to alert Interpol and everybody else that these people are actually innocent.

[Alamuti Lotus]

43. "bullshit indignation about the passports, it's just a bunch of antisemitic bullshit"

Hmm.

[Scurrilous]

9. France joins U.K., Ireland demand for Israeli answer over fake Dubai passports

<snip>

"France joined both the U.K. and Ireland in demanding Thursday that Israel explain how a forged French passport came to be used by the alleged assassins.

"We are asking for explanations from Israel's embassy in France over the circumstances of the use of a fake French passport in the assassination of a Hamas member in Dubai," the Foreign Ministry said in an electronic news briefing.

Meanwhile, the web of countries allegedly involved in the January assassination of Hamas strongman Mahmoud al-Mabhouh continues to grow as the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Dubai authorities are looking into five U.S.-issued credit card accounts suspected to have been used by the alleged assassins.

The cards, according to the Wall Street Journal report, issued by U.S. banks, were used by the suspected assassins to buy plane tickets connected to the operation, as well as other travel related items."

<snip>

"Israeli officials expressed concern Wednesday that the affair could seriously harm ties between Jerusalem and London. They said the British and Irish summonses could lead to similar steps on the part of France and Germany, other countries whose passports the assailants carried in Dubai.

One Israeli official said the Irish government had already contacted Britain, Germany and France to recommend they conduct a joint investigation into the incident."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1150675.html

[Arrowhead2k1]

12. I'm just waiting for someone to identify who these assassins really were.

Their pictures are everywhere. Somebody has to know them, somebody has to talk. It's only a matter of time.

[Jim Sagle]

52. Good on Mossad if they did kill the sumbitch.

:thumbsup:

[shira]

53. The 'world' was also enraged when Israel snuck into Argentina to smuggle Eichmann out

[Tripmann]

54. Did it take you 3 months to come up...

...with such an eloquent and intelligent contribution, Jim?

Are you using DU as a platform to cheerlead state sponsered assasination?

[Jim Sagle]

55. Cool pseud...'cuz reading your posts is a trip, man.