Lenient UK weak over Passports

2010-03-24
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has announced that an unnamed Israeli diplomat will be expelled following the assassination of Mahmud al-Mabhuh, one of the founders of the "Hamas" movement's military wing, in Dubai. This tells us several significant things:

First: It confirms that British passports used by the perpetrators of this crime were cloned by Israel's Mosad intelligence service, just as Major General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the Dubai police chief, had asserted in several press interviews and statements.

Second: It provides new and documented evidence for Interpol in their hunt to track those involved in this crime and bring them to justice. Evidence presented to the UK government following investigations in London, Tel Aviv, and Dubai came from its Serious and Organized Crime Agency, the most specialized agency in this kind of crime.

Third: Britain's move will prompt other European and Western countries, whose passports were also abused by Mosad in pursuit of the same crime, such as France, Germany, Ireland, and Australia, to expel Israeli diplomats working in their capitals.

Fourth: We do not know if the expelled diplomat was involved in this crime or not or had prior knowledge about it, since the British Foreign secretary did not mention this in his statement to the House of Commons yesterday, but he is probably one of the embassy's security officers and his expulsion is a clear message to his chiefs in Tel Aviv.

Cloning British passports to provide cover for a Mosad cell to carry out a terrorist act of assassination in a country that is friendly with the West is a blatant violation of British sovereignty and a definite threat to its interests and its citizens' security in a number of countries in the world.

With such a crime against friendly countries like Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, and Australia, Israel is proving it is a "rogue" state which does not respect international norms and charters and acts like an outlawed criminal gang.

Yet this British punishment was very mild compared to the magnitude of the crime and its possible repercussions for the security of Britain and its citizens. The punishment was expected to be much more than the expulsion of a diplomat. When the Israeli security services committed a similar crime in 1987 and cloned British passports to use them in terrorist operations, the British response was the expulsion of more than 13 Israeli diplomats and a total cessation of security cooperation with the Hebrew State for more than four years.

Secretary Miliband said he received "assurances" from the Israeli Government that this scandalous violation of British sovereignty and the cloning of passports bearing the state's symbol and embodying its prestige and dignity would not be repeated but he forgot or pretended to forget that former Israeli Foreign Minister Shim'on Peres gave the same assurances to his British counterpart in 1987, which practically means these assurances or pledges are of no value because Israel considers itself to be above all international norms and laws and can implement its crimes assured that it will not be seriously brought to account.

We know very well that Gordon Brown is unlike Margaret Thatcher but he should have built on her decision and deported a larger number of diplomats than those she deported out of concern for Britain, its dignity, sovereignty, and prestige because the present violation is much greater than the one which happened during her rule and is a blatant breach of official pledges not to repeat it.

Western pampering, particularly by Britain and America, is exactly what makes Israel and its government defy international will with policies such as its apartheid wall, settlement activities in occupied Jerusalem, killing the peace process, committing war crimes during the aggression against the Gaza Strip, and lastly violating the sovereignty of more than seven countries by cloning their passports and sending its assassination team to a peaceful country like the United Arab Emirates to undermine its security and stability and shake its image as an international financial centre and free zone.

These are not the acts of a state claiming it is the only democracy and representative of Western civilization in the Middle East. These are the acts of a "rogue" state which behaves like a criminal gang and a terrorist group. Like other rogue countries it must be stopped through firm international sanctions.