25 February 2010
A Conspiracy of One
Take any story about the Israel-Palestine conflict where the International Community expresses moral outrage over whatever bad thing Israel did and replace Israel with America or any European country and replace Palestinian terrorist with guerrilla or rebel fighter. Is the International Community ever morally outraged when Spain kills a few Basque separatists? Imagine if Quebec launched rockets into the US. Would the US apologise for not speaking French and building the Erie Canal? Or would American Marines invade the hell out of Canada? Why is there more moral outrage over Israeli soldiers defending its borders than there is over American soldiers fighting half a world away from its borders? That is a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.
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I've just watched a very interesting interview with Yossi Melman from Haaretz. He started out stating that it just didn't fit with Mossad's MO and ended up praising the neatness of the operation. It's a curious position to say We didn't do it, but if we did, we were right and did it well. If you're for it, then take ownership of it. If it's a noble cause (and I'm not commenting either way on that question) then it's a but pissweak to try and put others in the frame for it with fake passports. If you've ever seen an Australian passport, then you will know that it takes more than a bit of photoshopping to fake. Perhaps Dubai's immigration control is more gullible than some.
Is not "officially" having nuclear weapons kind of like MI6 not "officially" existing? Everyone knows it exists. You either have nuclear weapons or you don't. "Official" doesn't enter into it.
Well, I might not go so far as to express happiness over someone's death, but it's hard to be too upset about a terrorist's death. And I know I don't speak for all Americans, but I think Hamas is pretty high on our shitlist.
Why does Dubai always seem to be the place where these assassinations take place? It seems weird to me.
I think Israel has been put into an unfortunate situation. Why have things changed so much? I don't understand it.
As far as I'm concerned, the world is better off with one less terrorist, no matter which country he's from, or who killed him. But nature abhors a vacuum, so there will just be one more to take his place, unfortunately.
As long as there are human beings with differing political philosophies and religions, there will always be war in all its forms, including terrorism. The people of the world will never live in peaceful co-existence. It's against human nature.
I disagree with Yossi Melman. It fits the Mossad's MO but was done poorly. If it were done properly we wouldn't be talking about it. People would think the terrorist had an accident. The reason for not taking ownership is to avoid all the international outrage that's going on right now. The International Community gets more upset when Israelis kill terrorists than when terrorists kill Israelis. Using passports from other countries would be required if Israelis did this because you can't get into Dubai with an Israeli passport.
Israel has never confirmed or denied its nuclear weapons but I think everybody knows by now that they exist.
Hamas is very high on the American list. Nobody's dancing in the streets over this man's death but there is some concern that the International Community is more concerned about his murder than the murder of his victims.
Dubai is an international travel hub. Many flights in the region go through Dubai. If you don't want to kill somebody at home there's a good chance you might catch him in Dubai.
Things have changed so much because the world no longer feels sorry for Israel. There's no longer any reason to. Now they feel sorry for Palestine. And people who don't understand the situation think you have to side with either Israel or Palestine as if they're black and white.
I don't think terrorism is natural. Their leaders will be replaced but it's possible to thin their ranks enough to render them ineffective. The long-term solution is to improve the quality of life for the people they claim to represent. Then they would lose any support they have and be treated by the world as the murderers they are.
Fully agree with your last paragraph and also agree that if they'd done things properly, no-one would ever know.
I'm not aware of anyone bemoaning the assassination itself, merely the way it was done. I understand the need for documents that don't reveal the agents' identities, but couldn't they just falsify some without stealing innocent people's identities? The real people who have been dragged into this through no fault of their own are being brushed aside as collateral damage. That's where the outrage is coming from, at least from where I sit.
Here's the interview, if you're interested: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2830642.htm
I assume real passports were forged because it's much harder in the digital age to create a completely fake passport that would pass security. They used to just look at it and send you on your way. Now they scan it and maybe the computers know if it was never actually issued by certain countries. I could be wrong. I don't know how James Bond does it.
I'm sure in Australia they're upset about the forged passports since that's one of the countries involved but in the Arab media nobody really cares about that. Their concern is in the killing itself.
I have heard it was hamas that was responsible for killing one of its own.
Well, I would expect that looking for sympathy with Israel in the Arab press would be a bit like looking for sympathy with Britain in Derry. Not drawing any moral equivalents, just saying.
I think it was Newt Gingrich (of all people!) who say of America's counter-terrorism efforts, "The problem is not what we are doing to our enemies, the problem is what we're not doing to make friends."
I think the same might be said of Israel. Australia has always been a friend to Israel and supported her politically. For Israel to then use three Australians as patsies in an operation like this, is naturally going to prompt Australia to reflect on what kind of friend Israel is. And it should give other allies of Israel pause to reflect on how they might be used too. That's not political bias or moral judgement, that's just common sense. It wouldn't matter whether we were talking about Israel, the US, Britain or New Zealand.
I don't know of anyone who is upset about one less terrorist, but if this is how Israel treats its friends and then wonders why they have a PR problem, they should put two and two together.
This is exactly why some say it was a false flag operation. Hamas had issues with the person who was killed and they know some people would never be too upset over one of their own being killed but if they could drag Israel's allies into it and place the blame on Israel then they'd score major points. It makes perfect sense and answers the question of how the Mossad could so completely stuff such a simple operation. Hamas ordinarily murders their own quietly but maybe they finally realised how much they could gain by blaming their sworn enemy. When your sole purpose in life is to wipe a country off the map and kill all of its people you're not above a little covert treachery now and then.
If Israeli agents did this, and that's still an if despite what the media have decided amongst themselves, then the use of European and Australian passports can be explained by the need to enter Dubai without a visa. Only so many countries can do so and also have heterogeneous looking people. If you're an Israeli with a Eurpean passport nobody questions that you could be European. With a Chinese passport there would be problems. This is assuming that immigration computers know the difference between legitimate passports and fakes. It's all speculation at this point. And frankly it wouldn't be the first time. I've never seen a good explanation of why so many people were needed for such a simple operation.
You could argue that forging a real person's passport isn't the worst thing in the world. That person can easily show that his real passport never left his country or entered Dubai. Also we assume the people photographed in Dubai don't look like the real passport holders. It's not a good moral argument but if you're the kind of person who kills people because they kill people then you probably blur the lines of morality a lot anyway.
I'm surprised that Newt Gingrich is so opposed to the Bush doctrine.
I see the logic in everything you say. It would not be the first time (suspected) Mossad agents have been found out trying to falsify antipodean passports ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/16/israel ). From that, it could be suggested that it fits their MO, or that it's Hamas using the 2004 incident to make it look like Mossad this time around. Both scenarios are equally possible and beyond that, it becomes a game of, That's-just-what-they-want-you-to-believe.
I suspect that deep down, Newt is pretty sensible and reasonable, but he knows how to keep it buried deep down for political purposes.
That's the trouble with espionage. We only know the information and misinformation we're told. I doubt we'll ever know the truth of this situation. I think it's equally possible that the Mossad or Hamas did this. It could have also been somebody else.
If the Mossad did it they should apologise for involving innocent foreigners. But they won't since that's a small price to pay for security. If Hamas did it they should apologise for being terrorists. But they won't because they're terrorists.
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