In the wake of news that 3 of the suspects in the Dubai killing of Hamashole Mahmoud al-Mabhouh were traveling on Australian passports,  Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith called in Israel’s ambassador Yuval Rotem.

Australia has warned Israel it would regard any involvement in the forging or abuse of Australian passports for the killing of a Hamas militant as “not the act of a friend”.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told parliament this morning that three Australians suspected in the assassination of  Hamas militant Mahmud al-Mabuh in Dubai last month appear to have been the victims of passport fraud.

The assassination has been linked in the media by Dubai police to the Israeli security agency Mossad.

Mr Smith said ASIO and the Australian Federal Police were investigating the probable identity fraud involving  Australians Nicole Sandra Mccabe, Adam Marcus Korman and Joshua Daniel Bruce.

Mr Korman, who like the other two Australians lives in Israel, has denied any involvement, while Ms McCabe’s mother says her daughter is heavily pregnant.

“Preliminary analysis by the Australian Federal Police together with the Australian Passport Office shows that the three Australian passports appear to have been duplicated or altered,” Mr Smith said.

“At this stage Australian officials have no information, no information to suggest the three Australian passport holders were involved in any way other than as victims as passport or identity fraud”.

In his strongest comments on the matter, Mr Smith said Australia made “no conclusions” about the investigation into the killings but said it would appear a serious abuse of Australian passports had occurred.

Mr Smith called in Israeli ambassador Yuval Rotem this morning, urging Israel to “fully co-operate” with the Australian investigation.

“If the results of that investigation cause us to come to the conclusion that the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend,” Mr Smith said.

“Australia, of course, is a longstanding friend of Israel”.

Mr Smith said the passports were all issued in 2003, and since then there had been major improvements in passport security.

“The Australian government condemns in the strongest possible terms the misuse and the abuse of Australian passports,” he said.

The three Australians involved have been offered consular assistance.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:05PM: Wow, that Mossad is REAL GOOD!

6:54PM: FU, EU.

5:46PM: Curious caption of the day:

Palestinian children run to take cover during clashes between Palestinian and Israeli soldiers, not seen, in the West Bank city of Hebron, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010. Palestinians in Hebron continued to protest Thursday over the Israeli decision to recognize a disputed West Bank shrine as one of its national heritage sites. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned earlier this week that the region could plunge into a “religious war” over the decision. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

Doesn’t look like running to me.

Also, the girl on the left looks suitably distressed (I guess she didn’t hear the photographer’s request to turn on the tears).

1:00PM: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to froth at the mouth against Israel, further displaying the peaceful motivation behind his country’s nuclear program.

Arab nations will usher in a new Middle East “without Zionists and without colonialists,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday.

But with midgets, I assume.

Naqba Dwarf adds: What’s wrong with that?

Ahmadinejad was speaking during a trip to Syria, which follows a string of US efforts to break up Syria’s 30-year alliance with Teheran.

He said that “if the Zionist regime wants to repeat its past mistakes, this will constitute its demise and annihilation.”

12:22PM: It is not often that I will reproduce a Ha’aretz editorial and laud it as making sense, so enjoy this rare moment.

The story just gets more and more complicated, which on its face at least leads us into territory that is more than amazing – wild even – which is hard to judge by rational and professional means.

Twenty-six agents, perhaps even 30, sent to assassinate one person? Granted if they could flee the scene by sea, how could one think that Mossad agents would take cover in Iran? I ask myself. Even if they have unprecedented self confidence the likes of which are unknown?

Without disparaging the skill of Dubai’s chief of police, he took pride that his investigators are much more professional than the Mossad people (whom he accuses of carrying out the operation). One must take into account that he might have gotten carried away in the success of what he had uncovered.

There is no doubt that more than a little of the information that he is disclosing or leaking to the media is part of an ploy in which bits of disinformation are planted. He’s throwing out a lure in the hope that someone in Israel will swallow the bait and respond by incriminating himself or disclosing confidential information.

It began with a leak that on Mabhouh’s body there were signs of brute force that were evident that he was tortured before he was killed. There was even a report that his assassins tied him up with wire. In fact it turned out that for 10 days the Dubai police thought he had died of natural causes, so clearly had he not been tortured.

Now the world is being fed new, allegedly even more dramatic, information about 15 additional suspects, which was released by the Dubai Information Ministry and not the police.

The police chief, who attracted international coverage, apparently isn’t itching to advance the investigation. Last week he was out of the office for personal reasons and now it has been announced that he is on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

It is hard to believe that, if the Mossad intelligence agency carried out the operation, the planners were so irresponsible as to dispatch nearly 30 agents and to expose an entire select operational unit on one assassination operation. This is true even if we assume the planner thought the target should be hit no matter what, and even if hypothetically Mabhouh was on his way to Iran to arrange an arms deal that Israel had seen as changing the balance of power.

Either the new revelations are another salvo in Dubai’s psychological warfare or the police investigators are groping in the dark. It is doubtful we will ever know the truth. The evidence linking Israel to the affair is still weak, certainly for courtroom purposes but also in the diplomatic sphere. But the saga also sends a message of deterrence to Hamas that the long arm of whoever carried out the operation can hit another senior Hamas official.

6:08AM: Heh. (click to enlarge)

(hat tip: Martin)

34 thoughts on “The Day In Israel: Thursday Feb 25th, 2010”

  1. Has Australia been a 'friend' of Isreal in the same way as the Brits or has it been closer to friends like the Canadians lately?

        1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

          The only thing about Britain is that BOTH sides seem pretty anti-Israel, even though occasional politicians may not be.

  2. This is a wonderfully creative way to use Facebook. I applaud whoever came up with this. Don't Facebook administrators monitor the website for content?

    I am also encouraged to see Dave having shown significant growth as a webmaster in posting an article from a newspaper which takes a different political point of view. I am still stuck in the category of "massive potential for political growth" because I can not make it through a single episode of "Hannity" without violently pressing the "turn channel" button on the remote just minutes into his awful program.

    1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

      Watch what you call a newspaper! (I mean the web version.)

      Dave quotes Ha'atetz all ofthe time, just not the editorial page. I will quote the anti-semitic press like Ha'aretz of the New York Times, if it suits the purpose. After all, look at all of the great authors who were anti-semites – Chaucer (actual blood libel), Shakepeare, Kipling (by today's standards), O'Henry, Roand Dahl. Not Dickens, though – unlike in Shakespeare's time, there were Jews in England, and they called him out on Oliver Twist – after which he backed off.

        1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

          I don’t think any ofthis gets in the books. I did note that from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (which I read as an adult) that he seems looney left.

      1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

        Oh, I forgot my favorite, the (uncensored) prose version of Robin Hood. "What, quoth Robin, I am no Jew." Something like that. I assume that the word was used for either moneylender or fence. And that's not the worst quote. Read it in the Bradley Beach library as a fourth grader, and it always stuck in my memory.

  3. I heard that the Dubai tourist bureau is offering a new program for their special clients.It's a new 'Whodunnit' game. I personally see a lot of potential here. Mind you, these idiots will blame the Mossad if a fly gets swatted or the sun rises.

    1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

      Those videos (this one is only two minutes – htere are even shorter ones) tell the story better than any two- hour speech. I have tears in my eyes.

  4. The whole assasination smells. Why would Mossad use Israelis for bogus passports? That is so stupid I would execute everyone in Mossad if they did something that moronic. However we see Hamas get rid on one of their own who blatentantly violated Islamic law and behavioral requirements in a very amaturist manner leaving far to much 'evidence' at the scene. HAmas got rid of one of their own and are trying to blame Israel. The forgerys were from Hamas and Syria and their stooges in the IRA,Red Army faction and the reminants of Bader Meinhoff. who consistently use forged passports to cruise through the world. Watching this Dubai cop fumble his way seems to draw great parrallels with the Keystone Kpos of the US silent film era. They to were jokes who were unable to do anything.

    1. But the thing is: who else could have done it? Few agencies have the ability to successfully do this. I dont see how these are "mistakes". Maybe Dubai is just over-investigating.

      1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

        Honestly, do we really know everyone's capabilities?

        I know that in the Cold War, the KGB or another East European agency (see the "Painted Bird" incident in John Corry's My Times, or the whole CIA AIDS thing) would plant some story that the CIA did something or other, and the "in people" would swallow it. Never occurred to them that maybe that maybe the KGB was a lot better at this dort of thing than the CIA?

        I remember looking thorugh a rather thorough book on the beginnings of the internet. Seems the anti-war crowd in the '60s accused it of being some evil government conspiracy to control everybody.

        As they say, "the long night of fascism always seems to be falling over the U.S. – and always lands in Europe".

  5. One terrorist dead. Still more to come. Watch this space.

    How ungrateful of all those who wish to blame Israel.

    If Israel did do it ,then at least the Dubais should say thanks to Israel for doing the dirty work unless of course they do support terrorism which in that case makes the Dubais potential targets now too.

    Anti semites and anti zionists be berry berry careful.It's wabbit season all year round 🙂 now.

    Just remember if you do not want to make peace then accept the consequences.

    Gazians have themselves to blame for not taking opportunities given countless times.

    In my heart though, I know most are too damn thick to understand so in a grudging kind of way it's good too see the camel jockies suffer in the sh!thole they created for themselves.

    Keep it up…it's entertaining to see idiots suffer for their crimes while the rest of the world prospers.

    If Mossad is responsible my only complaint is why the delay ? So many arseholes and too little time.

  6. Michael Zvi Krumbein

    They tell me here that Dubai is pretty friendly to us. (That doesn't mean they aren't at war with us, the weird way things are in this region.)

      1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

        But isn't it sad that this is the best we can hope for. The dream that Zionism would stop anti-semtism by making the Jews "normal" didn't pan out.

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