Antony Loewenstein

Interesting that some key Australian Jewish organisations are refusing to comment on the Israel/Australia passport scandal (and those who are speaking are so utterly unconvincing. Another own goal, guys). Perhaps they’re waiting for instructions from Jerusalem:

Australian Jewish leaders say evidence of Israel’s alleged involvement in the Hamas assassination plot and forged passport scandal is inconclusive and unproven.

But yesterday they stopped short of criticising the Australian government’s strong response to the controversy, saying any abuse of passports held by Australian citizens was of “deep concern”.

Jewish organisations were reluctant to speak to The Weekend Australian about the scandal that has caused a rift in a normally close relationship between Australia and Israel.

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council refused to comment as did several other Jewish groups.

The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Robert Goot said there was no reason to be critical of Israel at this time.

Israel is suspected of sponsoring or condoning the falsification of three Australian passports to support a suspected Mossad team that assassinated a Hamas leader in a Dubai hotel last month.

“A number of allegations have been made but at this stage there are no hard facts or evidence,” MrGoot told The Weekend Australian.

He said there was no proof Israel had behaved improperly.

“We will await the results of the (Australian Federal Police and ASIO) investigation before commenting further on the specific situation,” he said.

“We share the government’s deep concern about the possibility of abuse of Australian passports

in respect of any Australian citizen, and in particular former members of the Australian Jewish community.”

Mr Goot did not believe the controversy had harmed the relationship between the two countries.

The president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, Philip Chester, agreed the relationship would survive the controversy.

“This (controversy) is of concern but I don’t see it as fundamentally altering the relationship because (it) is so well grounded.”

Mr Chester expressed frustration that the media focus was only on Israel’s alleged involvement in the assassination plot and not on the man who was killed.

“At the core of this was a target who was seriously a bad person involved in bad terrorist incidents over many years,” he said.

But he did not condone the misuse of Australian passports and said he understood why the government was investigating.

“We are all waiting to see what emerges before coming to any conclusions,” he said.

A story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald – on an issue I’ve been receiving information about recently, privately of course, though something I could never prove – suggests that Israel’s infiltration of Australia (and many Western states) is something crying out to be discussed:

ASIO is investigating at least three dual Australian-Israeli citizens who they suspect of using Australian cover to spy for Israel.

The investigation began at least six months before last month’s assassination of the Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, widely believed to have been carried out by the Israeli security agency Mossad.

Authorities in Dubai have revealed that three people suspected of taking part in the assassination were travelling on Australian passports, using the names of three dual Australian-Israeli citizens.

The three Australian names linked to the assassination are in no way connected to the three people being investigated by ASIO.

According to two Australian intelligence sources who have been in contact with the Herald, the three men under surveillance all emigrated to Israel within the last decade.

Each has travelled back to Australia at different times to legally change their names and obtain new Australian passports. One of the men has changed his surname three times, the other two have changed theirs twice.

The men have changed their names from surnames that could be read as European-Jewish to ones more typically identified as Anglo-Australian.

Australian citizens are generally allowed to change their name once every 12 months, as long as it is not for criminal reasons.

The new passports have been used to gain entry to a number of countries that are hostile to Israel including Iran, Syria and Lebanon. All three do not recognise Israel and forbid Israelis from entering. Israel also forbids its citizens from travelling to those countries for security reasons.

The Herald understands that the three Australians share an involvement with a European communications company that has a subsidiary in the Middle East. A person travelling under one of these names sought Australian consular assistance in Tehran in 2004.

The Herald has contacted two of the men, both of whom emphatically denied they were involved in any kind of espionage activity.

Both men confirmed they had changed their surnames, but said that the proposition they had done so in order to obtain new documents to travel throughout the Middle East were, in the words of one, “totally absurd”.

“This is a complete fantasy,” said the man when contacted in Israel. “I have changed my name for personal reasons.”

The other man, who was not in Israel when contacted, expressed shock at the suggestion he was under any kind of surveillance and said that he had also changed his name for personal reasons.

“I have never been to any of those countries that you say I have been to,” he said. ”I am not involved in any kind of spying. That is ridiculous.”

The same man is also believed to hold British citizenship, and is believed to have come to the attention of British intelligence after he had changed his name.

In January the Herald visited the offices of the European company that connects the three men.

The company’s office manager confirmed to the Herald that one of the men being monitored by ASIO – the same man believed to hold a British passport – was employed by the company but was “unavailable”.

The company’s chief executive later emphatically denied that this man was ever employed by his company, and totally rejected that his company was being used to gather intelligence on behalf of Israel.

ASIO said it had no comment to make on the case.

Meanwhile, the government confronted Israel for a second time yesterday over the Dubai plot, with the acting ambassador in Tel Aviv, Nicoli Maning-Campbell, conveying the government’s concerns to officials in Israel.

The Israeli embassy in Canberra said it had relayed Australia’s demands to Israel but would not comment.

Another interesting angle in the ever-widening Australia/Israel passport scandal, via the ABC:

MEREDITH GRIFFTHS: But a New Zealand MP Phil Goff says the links are there [of Mossad involvement].

PHIL GOFF: It is I think very clear that this is part of the modus operandi of Mossad, that they gain their passports in this way.

MEREDITH GRIFFTHS: Mr Goff was the foreign minister in 2004 when one of New Zealand’s immigration officials noticed a passport applicant was speaking with a North American accent.

The police were notified and eventually a complex plot was uncovered where Israeli citizens were trying to steal the identity of a man with severe physical disabilities.

Phil Goff says it was clear from the circumstances that the plot was linked to an agency of the state of Israel.

PHIL GOFF: When the police apprehended two of the three culprits that came from Israel to get the passports there was an indirect contact from the Israeli Government wanting to hush the matter up.

We of course were not prepared to do that as a Labor government in New Zealand. We told them in no uncertain terms that people that came to our country, committed criminal acts against our law would be treated openly and before the courts in the same way as anybody else.

Indeed that is what happened to the two agents.

MEREDITH GRIFFTHS: New Zealand said that was not the sort of behaviour it expected from a supposedly friendly country and suspended diplomatic relations until Israel said sorry.

PHIL GOFF: They made the apology for the acts committed by quote unquote Israeli citizens. But apparently this was scarcely a genuine apology because having found New Zealand too tough a target they then turned their attention elsewhere and used the passports of other nationals.

John Pilger on the unreported heroes in Israel:

Rami and Nurit are two of the founders of the Parents Circle, or Bereaved Families Forum, which brings together Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones. “It’s painful to acknowledge,” he said, “but there is no basic moral difference between the [Israeli] soldier at the checkpoint who prevents a woman who is having a baby from going through, causing her to lose the baby, and the man who killed my daughter. And just as my daughter was a victim [of the occupation], so was he.” Rami describes the Israeli occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians as a “cancer in our heart”. Nothing changes, he says, until the occupation ends.

A new episode in the “No Panties for Sri Lanka” campaign, urging the boycott of goods made in the country:

The Age’s Diplomatic Editor Daniel Flitton:

Spies, lies and murder: Australia’s relationship with Israel has been dragged into the mud, with the potential that this scandal could get a great deal worse. An ugly episode, indeed.

No diplomatic niceties softened the message from Foreign Minister Stephen Smith yesterday – if Israeli officials have tampered with Australian passports, ”Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend”. To ensure he was heard, Smith made the point twice.

This is a disaster for Israel. The damage from claims that Israel’s spy outfit Mossad killed a Hamas leader in Dubai has now engulfed many of its staunch allies, courtesy of the assorted fake passports used by the hit-squad. British, Irish, French, German – and now Australian – documents are all implicated.

Democratic countries should stick together and no one doubts Israel is a state with many enemies. But Australia’s outrage is not confected. If Israel has abused the faith of allies, repairing trust will take a long time.

No Australian government has delivered Israel such a strong warning as Smith and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have done – not Bob Hawke, not John Howard, both ”long-standing friends of Israel”, as Rudd described himself yesterday. Remember, Australia backed Israel to the hilt in the Gaza war last year and was one of only 18 countries to vote against a UN investigation into war crimes during the campaign.

Australia has not yet accused Israel of carrying out the Dubai hit, or equipping the team with fake passports. Smith properly demanded Israel co-operate with investigations to get at the truth. Israel has a chance to prove its innocence – or come clean.

Much is yet to unravel in this story. Dubai’s authorities must have known about Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s role in Hamas, leaving the question why he was allowed into the country in the first place. Was he lured, or did the hit-team follow a tip-off?

But Australia would not have called in Israel’s ambassador to demand answers without strong evidence to back claims that these 26 people with links to Israel were involved in killing Mabhouh. It was clear yesterday that Smith and Rudd are deeply annoyed.

Israel has form in abusing passports. In a tangle with New Zealand in 2004, Israeli spies made a clumsy effort to steal the identity of a wheelchair-bound man who had cerebral palsy. Then PM Helen Clark blasted the actions as an unacceptable breach of New Zealand’s sovereignty and formal ties were severed for a time.

Rightly so. Passports are immensely valuable, Western documents especially.

Smith was at pains to point out that these were older passports dated from 2003, lacking enhanced measures to protect them from tampering. The government does not want Australians’ relative freedom of movement put at risk because of this breach.

Australian passports carry a message, a request from the Governor-General on behalf of the Queen, to allow the bearer to pass freely ”without let or hindrance” and afford him or her with every protection.

The facts of this case must first be established, but if it’s shown that Israel has abused Australia’s trust, that protection is forever diminished. A long friendship is on the line.

Unless this is all very elaborate theatre designed to convince the Australian people that the government is furious about the Israeli passport scandal, when in fact, they’re not, I can’t recall another time when Israel is being challenged as strongly in the public arena (and certainly not when Israel is killing civilians in Palestine):

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has assured Australians their passports are safe, after three forged passports were used by suspects in a political assassination.

Mossad, Israel’s secret service, is widely believed to be behind the organised hit on senior Hamas operative Mahmud al-Mabhuh in a Dubai hotel room last month.

Three Australian passport-holders, Joshua Bruce, Adam Korman and Nicole McCabe, are believed to have had their identities stolen and used in fake passports held by three suspects in the assassination.

“We do know that in terms of passports in this country, basically they’re very safe,” Ms Gillard told the Nine Network today.

“It’s less than half a per cent that go missing each year and most of them would be lost in pretty benign circumstances.

“You know they’re at the back of the sock drawer and no one can find them.”

Ms Gillard said any use of Australian identities by the Israeli government for secret police assassinations would not be tolerated.

“If there’s any suggestion Australian identities have been used by the Israeli government for this purpose then that is completely unacceptable,” she said.

“Democracies have to be accountable for their actions and we’ll be making sure that Israel is accountable and this is fully investigated.”

From today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Betrayed PM should not be taken for granted by Israel.

This is priceless. While the Australian public is starting to get an insight into Israel’s criminality and blatant incompetence - this man is a terrorist and we can kill him…because we’re Israel – these comments from an Israeli hack on ABC Radio this morning is, well, let him hang himself:

MARIUS BENSON: Regardless of the sources of the accusation can I just get a direct response from you? Is Israel denying involvement?

YIGAL PALMOR: I don’t think I should even respond to that because there is no accusation. I refuse to stand accused because no-one has accused me, being Israel, of involvement.

Surely article of the day about Australian passports being involved in the Dubai murder (while Israeli itself continues to deny its involvement, sounding a little like a scorned schoolchild who doesn’t like admitting he hits girls). Over to you, Greg Sheridan (essentially wishing well Israel and any other country that wants to murder supposed terrorists in an extra-judicial way but urges it to be done cleaner):

Israel has every right to wage war against those who wage war against it but Israel certainly does not have the right to misuse the passports of innocent Australians in the process.

This was a very bad mistake by Jerusalem. There will be a great deal of criticism of Israel over the next few days. Let’s be clear what Israel deserves criticism for.

Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorists and murderers. The international community cannot condemn Israel for waging too indiscriminate a war against Hamas in Gaza, then condemn it all the more for a targeted strike against a key terrorist murderer.

Morally, there is no difference in Israel’s actions from those of the US when it targets al-Qa’ida and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan for strikes by unmanned drone aircraft. The Australian Special Air Service has been sent on similar missions in Afghanistan. But one glaring question out of this debacle is how did it go so wrong. Israel has conducted numerous operations like this, often enough with the co-operation of one or other Arab intelligence agency. The reach, expertise and stealth of Mossad is legendary in the Middle East, and a substantial part of Israel’s overall military prestige. But this operation has attracted all the wrong kind of publicity and left behind embarrassing video images and evidence of Mossad agents’ behaviour. The misuse of Australian passports is a shocking mistake by Israel. Perhaps the key strategic challenge Israel faces is its diplomatic and political isolation. Apart from the US, Israel has no better friend in the world than Australia.

Similarly, there could be only a tiny handful of leaders anywhere in the world as committed to Israel as Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. A smart nation, and Israel is normally among the smartest, does not ever, under any circumstances, burn friends like that. Canberra has a very close, active and intimate intelligence relationship with Israel. Many of our top intelligence people go there for consultations and even for special short course training. It is astonishing to find a circumstance in which the PM is condemning Israel. To misuse the Australian connection in this way is a very poor show by the Israelis. For God’s sake, don’t do it again.

The organisation Zochrot are a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian catastrophe.

Its head Eitan Bronstein writes in Hebrew (translated below) about Israel’s proposed Nakba law:

The Nakba law is coming up again for consideration in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, in a more moderate version than before but with the same motivation:  to frighten everyone who wishes to commemorate the human and political tragedy that occurred in 1948, in which the Zionists expelled most of the Palestinian inhabitants of the country and the state of Israel destroyed most of the localities in which they lived.  Those proposing the law hope to mobilize Zionist patriotism by threatening to forbid commemorating Independence Day as a day of mourning.  They are blind, of course, to the historical context, and the development of that tradition among the displaced Palestinians who remained in Israeli territory.  Let us not forget that Arab localities in Israel were ruled by a military government until 1966.  Palestinian citizens were forbidden to travel “beyond the pale” without a permit from the military governor.  On Independence Day all the residents had a vacation, even the Arabs!  The most important place for them to visit was the one where they had lived, to which they were forbidden to return.  As the years went by, and they understood that the Jewish state would never allow them to return home, this event took on a national-political aspect, and in recent years it is celebrated with a “March home” to the remains of one of the localities captured during the nakba.  “Their independence; our Nakba,” became the main slogan of these events.

The government intends to impose economic sanctions on the organizers of these important commemorations, which will only increase the discrimination suffered by Palestinian citizens of Israel.  The economic sanctions contradict the state’s obligation to the welfare of all its citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or national identity.  In recent years, a growing number of Jews have participated in the return marches to Palestinian localities which Israel captured during the Nakba, and support for the right of return is increasing.  These Jews are undermining the ethno-national dichotomy of the slogan, recognizing that the tragedy which occurred in 1948 is part of their own history.  The participation of Jews in events commemorating the Nakba undermines the effort, which is as old as Zionism itself, to bring about confrontation and schism between Arabs and Jews in the country.

It may not come as a surprise that in this difficult time for Israeli public relations efforts, the government disseminates absurd “facts” about the Palestinian refugees.  For example, that they numbered only 320,000, not approximately 800,000, as a result of the Nakba, while 150,000 “were absorbed in Arab countries” and 50,000 “ returned to their countries.”  Such newspeak insults the intelligence of many Israelis, who have known for a long time that the official government explanations for the events of 1948 are intentional lies.

Hundreds of Israelis contact Zochrot every year.  Educators, students, journalists, directors and others who are interested request information which has been concealed for so long about what happened just outside the house where they were born.  The editor of the most comprehensive web site about the Nakba, www.palestineremembered.com reports that the number of Israelis entering the site is second only to the number of Palestinians.  These are dramatic developments which no law which tries to compel people to forget the Nakba will be able to stop.

The Nakba is increasingly present in Israeli cultural production, no longer ignored by best-selling books and films by young directors.  Even architects are beginning to show signs of addressing the traditions of local Palestinian architecture.

Despite these positive signs, it is impossible to underestimate the danger presented by the strengthening of anti-democratic currents in Israel.  The present government is acting to greatly restrict the freedom of civil society to negotiate with the regime over the most controversial topics.  Arbitrary arrests, outrageous investigations and draconic legislation are what you find in the toolbox of a government which knows that its survival depends on creating a “iron wall” that, for now, protects the Israeli colonial regime.

Eitan Bronstein
Zochrot

February 2010

The weakness of the UN in the Middle East. Scraps on the table and even then they thank the Israelis for nothing:

24 February 2010

UN Special Coordinator Robert Serry called on Israeli President Shimon Peres today to discuss efforts to resume Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the situation in the West Bank, and the continuing crisis in Gaza.

At the outset of the meeting, President Peres indicated that Israel intended to fully respect religious rights in places of worship. Special Coordinator Serry, who had expressed his concern on the matter in a statement on Monday, noted President Peres’ reassurance and said he would convey it to the Secretary-General.

Special Coordinator Serry underscored UN efforts to support the resumption of meaningful negotiations. He and President Peres exchanged views on how best to ensure that negotiations could succeed.

Special Coordinator Serry and President Peres agreed on the importance of supporting statebuilding efforts in the West Bank. Mr. Serry appealed for further Israeli steps to enable expansion of Palestinian Authority control of areas of the West Bank.

On Gaza, Special Coordinator Serry underlined Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s appreciation for President Peres’ efforts, including in helping to facilitate the entry of glass into Gaza. However, he underscored the Secretary-General’s deep concern at the situation in Gaza. He stressed that the blockade of Gaza was undermining legitimate commercial activity while empowering an illicit tunnel economy.

While President Peres suggested that there were no humanitarian shortages, Special Coordinator Serry highlighted the lack of materials coming through legitimate crossings for economic recovery and reconstruction for the civilian population.

Special Coordinator Serry appealed for Israel to respond positively to the long-standing proposal of the Secretary-General to complete stalled UN construction projects in Gaza, and urged that the UN be more empowered to help the civilian population.

Special Coordinator Serry and President Peres also discussed the regional situation.