ISRAEL: Ireland sends Israeli diplomat packing with a message that forging passports is 'clearly unacceptable'

The government of Ireland called on Israel to "withdraw a designated member of its staff" from its embassy in Dublin, Reuters reported Tuesday. This polite wording means that a third country is kicking out a Mossad rep over misuse -- forgery, in this case -- of its passports in the assassination of Mahmoud el Mabhouh in Dubai in January. Previously, Britain and Australia each sent packing an unnamed Israeli diplomat said to be the intelligence agency's representative in response to the misuse of their passports.

Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said in a statement that the misuse of Irish passports by a state with which Ireland enjoys friendly, if sometimes frank, bilateral relations is clearly unacceptable and requires a "firm response."

The Mossad is widely believed to be behind the assassination. Israel isn't commenting. But quite a few Israelis with dual nationalities learned from the Dubai police that their identities had recently visited Dubai without them.

Minister Martin said the fact that the fake Irish passports were used by the members of the same group who carried the forged British and Australian passports "leads us to the inescapable conclusion that an Israeli government agency was responsible for the misuse and, most likely, the manufacture of the forged Irish passports associated with the murder of Mr. Mabhouh." 

Ireland expressed its intention two weeks ago but sought a decent interval to avoid linking this to the flotilla affair, Israeli media had reported at the time. 

Not all the passports used in the hit were fake. At least one, a German passport, was genuine (read a previous post about how it was obtained), issued to one Michael Bodenheimer who submitted convincing documents in Cologne while accompanied by another man. Bodenheimer, the real one, had never left Israel. Germany thinks it found the fixer in the passport scam and at their request, Polish authorities arrested one "Uri Brodsky," (or a variant,"Brodetsky") an Israeli citizen. Germany wants him extradited; he probably will be.

The mysterious assassination saga continues to unfold as cover stories unravel, and other shoes just keep dropping. But just how many feet were there-- and why so many? Ronen Bergman, an Israeli investigative journalist specializing in intelligence issues, explained on Israeli radio this week that the method chosen by "whoever did it" was complicated and required many people for surveillance, breaking into the room, making it lock from the inside afterwards, scouts everywhere, and so on.

And the method was probably dictated by the arena, Bergman said. A "louder," less sophisticated plan like, say, shooting him in the street, would have resulted in all exits to Dubai being sealed off immediately, leaving agents no way out. The "quiet" alternative called for considerable manpower. Various mistakes in both planning and implementation, he suggested, made the quiet op the loudest of all.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem.

Comments

[Rollie Kenmore]

Paul made a comment that "Israel is doing the same thing to the Palestinian people as England did to the Irish people."

Sounds good, right?

Paul first...Ireland had a long history of associating with Nazi Germany.

Second, if not for England...we would be speaking French or Spanish.

Third, Irish foreign policy is anti-Israel...because Vatican policy is anti-Israel...Irish foreign policy gets its directives from the Vatican State.

[q]

http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html

This is why the Shoah is still relevant: Hamas is calling for another round. And why Hamas' leadership will continue to be assassinated.

Emily: no, it means no more extermination of the Jews. Ideally, no group, no people should be targeted in that way. But never again is not universal. German morality is universal. Good luck with it.

[Randy]

"genocidal acts acted on non-Jewish ethnicities" ???
Give me a break.
Somehow I missed on the evening news that the Israelis were lining up Gaza citizens by the thousands to be machine gunned systematically when they get to the front of the line, with mass graves somewhere there.
Putting a blockade on Gaza while allowing in food and emergency (medical) supplies means Israel does NOT want the population to die or be exterminated (which to me is what genocide is). They want the Gazans to get fed up with Hamas and vote them out the way they voted them in. And of course the Israelis want to stop the flow of weapons to those scattered amongst the Gazans who are using those weapons for terrorist acts.
I'll grant one example though.
Sabra and Shatila in 1982- definitely a terrorist act.
An Israeli commission found the Israeli defense ministry guilty of complicity by negligence, because they allowed the Phalangists into the camps and should have had reason to know the Phalangist thinking at the time. There was ample opportunity to guess what was going to happen. War hero Sharon was forced to resign as Defense Minister.

[Randy]

The U.N. defines terrorism this way (by defining what is an ACT of terrorism): "Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public."
George Washington? No way-- tell me how.
If 9/11 simply wanted to kill people in the Twin Towers, then not a terrorist act, just murder, but if the aim was to make the American public scared to fly or walk down the street, then DEFINITELY terrorism.
Israelis? Probably not terrorism, but I'll listen- is anything they do PRIMARILY intended to provoke a general state of terror? Haven't seen it yet. Hamas & Huzbulloh? DEFINITELY. Indescriminate shelling of Israeli towns and villages (rather than targeting military bases) could be nothing else.
That brings us to Mosaad. Interesting question. But the fact that they want to remain secret means they might want a state of terror (and fear) among a small number of terrorists, but not a GENERAL state of terror (the U.N. definition).
Interestingly- Auschwitz. Genocide, absolutely. But not terrorism because the Germans wanted to keep it secret (they'd rather lead innocent lambs (their enemies) to slaughter rather than promote general terror and panic among the populations in occupied Europe. An international human rights crime anyway.

[Colin]

Kyle wrote "Ireland has a lot of nerve. Has anyone ever heard of the IRA? It was one of the most vile terrorist groups on the planet. "

The Irgun fought a dirty war against the British for a Jewish homeland just like the IRA fought for an Irish homeland. One mans terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. George Washington was also considered a terrorist by the British.

[Onboard skeptic]

from Mark:

"And as far as Poland turning a Jew over to Germany seems like old times. Poland with the help of Germany killed over a million jews. "

That comment shows how much you're mind is still stuck in the past. At the time that was a deplorable action, yet it has no relevance to the scene today.
If Israel were to behave itself(and its actions clearly demonstrate otherwise), then it wouldn't get called on the carpet so much as it rightfully does.

[Zu]

this page does not display it is blacked out over the print

[Paul]

Israel is doing with the palestinian people the same think England did with the irish people.

[Emily]

no, its a country handing over a SPY/ASSASIN to the country from which he forged a document and stole the identity of an unaffiliated citizen. Had my identity been stolen and used to commit a political assassination in another country- hell yeah, I would want to see them prosecuted.

Members of the intelligence services of a country are allowed into their host country as a courtesy. If they are seen as abusing the hospitality of the host country, they have every right to ask that individual to leave. If Russia discovers that the CIA representative in the US embassy in Moscow was complicit in forging Russian passports, they have every right to expel that individual too.

Which reminds me- no more Holocaust references until Israel takes the lead in preventing genocidal acts acted on non-Jewish ethnicities. Never again does not mean "Never again for the Jews only"

[mark]

Lets hope that Ireland never needs help of this nature from Israel. And as far as Poland turning a Jew over to Germany seems like old times. Poland with the help of Germany killed over a million jews. When there was no law in poland and it was open season the Poles had an orgasmic type response killing innocent people as the Germans removed all law that kept a human from becoming a murderous beast. So yes a few years later a jewish nation hunts down another murder, and again the poles cannot wait to turn a jew over to a german. Nothing new.

[Kyle]

Ireland has a lot of nerve. Has anyone ever heard of the IRA? It was one of the most vile terrorist groups on the planet.

Shut the hell up and kiss the blarney.

[Haris Siddiqui]

"Letting Israel investigate the attack on the aid flotilla is like letting Charlie Manson investigate the Sharon Tate killings." Let's make the ludicrousness of this situation go viral!