So if Mossad used UK passports whats the correct response?

Great Debates
181

If you’re chuckling at them not disabling the security cameras, you watch too many spy movies on television. A guy like this is a high value target to multiple organizations, and he’s going to be recognized wherever he goes. If the security cameras near his room suddenly malfunction while he’s there, whoever monitors the cameras is going to hit the panic button, and there are going to be cops all over the place. Exactly what you don’t want, if you’re an assassin. You want to get in, do the hit, and get out before anybody realizes you’re there, which is exactly what this team did. Yes, there’s evidence left behind, but that doesn’t really matter once the team is out of the country.

If this was a Mossad operation, no western nation is going to extradite them to anywhere in the Arab world.

182

Finn], I know it was prolly just overlooked since it’s the last post on the page, but I had a couple of questions for you in Post #150.

183

The thing is, the rest of the world won’t agree. The UN isn’t going to condemn anti-Israeli terrorism, because the rest of the world supports anti-Israeli terrorism. All that would happen if Israel went to the UN saying that Dubai has a responsibility to take action against a Hamas leader is that Israel will be condemned for their occupation of the territories.

184

We need more “Hello, Bond, James Bond” type of spies subterfuge be damned.

185

Pretty much every “civilized nation” has one or more intelligence agencies that operate outside the realm of the law. Why do you think the CIA is not supposed to conduct operations inside this country? Spying is illegal. It is also necessary, and has been going on throughout recorded history. The agents understand the risks they take. Get caught, and it’s prison or death…probably death in hostile nations. Get away clean, and it’s a commendation in your file that very few people will have the proper security clearance to ever read.

186

Just as whether Afganistan wishes to take action it is their decision and no one elses’.

I can see a problem with submitting a claim for action to the UN - namely, that it lacks any legitimacy in its dealings with the Israeli-Arab situation.

Isn’t that simply substituting “popularity makes right” for “might makes right”?

No, the problem with this seems to be similar to the previous analogy using the Dalai Lama.

Exactly right. Which is rather different than the case with the Dalai Lama, random Jews, etc.

I suspect the question you are not asking yourself is “why is it okay for a guy everyone knows is a terrorist to travel about freely without interference from the local authorities”?

I can see the UK having a legitimate beef with having their papers used - which should, rightly, result in some half-hearted diplomatic harumphing.

What I do not disagree with, is the use of assassins to murder a terrorist on the soil of a country that is, seemingly, not arresting the man.

It is really no different from using a drone to blow the fellow up, or any other war death. It is prefereable to the alternatives - namely, either doing nothing or declaring war on those countries that harbour or tolerate terrorists.

187

Well isn’t that kinda the point? Or are you suggesting that the rest of the world is anti Israeli?

At what point does Israel have to suck it up, and actually say, you know, what we are doing might not be right?

At what point does the rest of the world have to say, you know, we actually have to do something about Israel ignoring the soverignity (jeez that’s hard to spell) of other nations.

Now this isn’t to say that I think terrorism is ok, but neither do I think that occupation and subverting the laws of other countries is the solution. And I don’t think the two are as closely connected as Israel would have us believe.

Sorry…the rest of the world supports anti Israeli terrorism. Since when does New Zealand support terrorism? Yet Israel wanted to perpetuate crimes against it.

188

Yes, I’m suggesting that the rest of the world, or that the UN, at least, is anti-Israeli. The UN constantly condemns Israel for everything, while ignoring the crimes of Palestinians, and UNRWA provides aid to and shelters Hamas and Fatah.

189

Actually, you’ll note that I did not. I pointed out that he had offered as one of his justifications for the horrible potential results for this that: “In the Arab world, you can bet that this will play well, the Americans and the Zionists who control them will be a superb recruiting tool, even if the facts are nothing like this at all.”

As pointed by, by Malthus among others, certain Conspiracy Theorists around the world especially those who believe that America is a ZOG, don’t need facts. The argument ‘Israel is accused of doing something, so now the US is at even greater risk than it was yesterday!’ is a silly argument and not one whose lattice-work I chose to engage with.

But next time I’ll make that clearer. I will note, however, that I didn’t say anybody was supporting the concept of a ZOG, only talking about it. And I will also point out that seriously using ZOG conspiracy theories as a reason why Israel’s military actions are bad for us is an absurdity. We don’t, of course, see that standard (which splits into a double) applied at home. Ever heard “don’t allow abortions, or you’re just giving justification to abortion clinic bombers, even if the facts are nothing like that at all”? No? How about “We have to examine the root cause of abortion doctor murders and see if we need to rethink our support of abortion doctors?” No? That’s my point. Certain arguments use premises which I find to be rationalizations and which require an inordinate burden of refutation to even get them on a level playing field.

No, but your lack of understanding is. We established the objective fact that the use of fake passports for all of the modern age of espionage has had no negative consequences for those nations whose passports were faked. No valid mechanism was suggested and no reason for a ‘tipping point’ was put forward to explain why all that would change now.

That you don’t understand why an argument that shows that the patterns we’ve seen have not changed is the null hypothesis and it’s not been falsified, well, that’s your own call. That you believe basic logic to be “hypocrisy” is your rather substantial mistake.

Of course other people have disagreed. Not one has offered evidence as to why this will be different than every single other time a fake passport has been used, or why now, all of a sudden, Brits are in some sort of danger. As this isn’t even the first time Brits have had their passports used, it should be really easy for someone to point to “we, last time, thus and such happened!”
*
Nobody has because nobody can*, because all you folks have is subjective, non-cogent opinions. When faced with history, facts and the null hypothesis you cannot falsify it, only play guessing games at what horrible things you’re sure will happen. Yeep. Come on then, show that the null hypothesis should be falsified. Show why this is different from the entire history of spies using bogus passports and why the tipping point has suddenly been reached so that everything we’ve ever seen no longer applies.

If by doesn’t matter you really mean: “is the central premise in a discussion of whether or not the guy had to be killed or not coupled with a second premise of whether or not it was possible to do it any other way that was less damaging to civilians around him”, then sure.

This silly moral relativism has to go. Do try to at least look at objective facts. Hamas is proudly dedicated to targeting and killing civilians in a stated worldview that included slaughtering the Jews and destroying a sovereign state. Find me a similar person, and you’re welcome to argue that they, too, should be eliminated.

No, that’s exactly why it’s right, well, coupled with the second premise. The guy deserved to die and there was no other way to eliminate him without causing significantly more suffering to innocents around him, whether by sanctions or by war. This cleaner, more efficient and blatantly more moral that waging war with the theater being an entire nation.

We’ve already gone over this, drop the moral relativism and it becomes clear.

Your argument has gone all Oroborous on us. If you admit that the guy was a perfectly valid target in a war, that there was no other way to kill him without harming more people and that nobody else (despite great harumphing and tisking to the contrary) was harmed, then it’s not “might makes right”, but “right makes right”.

190

Past edit window:

P.S. Tom, you point is still well taken. I will not bring up anybody’s mention of popular anti-semitic conspiracy theories in the Arab world unless they are endorsed.

191

Perhaps, if Israel stops blatantly breaking international law, they would get more respect on the world stage. Personally I would like to see U.N. come out much harsher on Israel than they have thus far.

Finn, your entire argument is moral relativism. I assume you accept that murder is generally wrong. In this case you think it is justified, because the target was a greater evil. That is your immoral action is okay, because this other person is more immoral. Arguing that you can use this reasoning, but others can’t, is disingenuous.

192

Certainly not the posts I have seen, tomndebb.

Regardless, my statement seems to have come across more strongly than intended, and for that I apologize to Finn and the board at large. My comment should have been more clearly restricted to specific discussions over Israeli politics, on which Finn’s record and position seem fairly clear. Sorry if my response came across as any broader than that.

Finally, this point you berated me for was actually one that Finn was gesticulating about in one of his posts - I did not bring it up, he had taken another poster’s words and exploded them into an absurd hyperbole that he used to mock that poster while avoiding a meaningful reply. Disappointing.

FinnAgain, I am ignoring your rant to me but I would like to repose my simple question:

You will note this point I have been trying to put to you is not in any shape anti-semitic and is in fact a crux in this particular discussion: beyond rather pointless discussions about “morality” and “rights” etc., is it not important to recognize that incidents such as the one in Dubai do no one any favours, including Israel? Do you agree or disagree, or not care?

I’d like to know, because to the above question you saw fit to reply only with the following:

Aside from being a revolting and base thing to say, how do you think it is at all relevant or appropriate? For what rhetorical purpose do you accuse me of wife-beating?

193

Cite the law. Come on, we’ve had enough claims of international law. Cite it.

Wrong. Blatantly, spectacularly wrong.
Here, I’ll show you what moral relativism actually looks like: “the Dali Lama is not a terrorist and is not a valid target of war, but ‘not liking’ him is as valid a reason as it is to kill a known terrorist responsible for the targeted death of civilians because, after all, people don’t like him too.”

It ignores the, not unimportant, distinction that one targets civilians and is responsible for terrorism while the other is a happy smiling old man. It seeks to make them equivalent through fallacious moral relativism by claiming that since both are not liked, that we can ignore the actual circumstances and killing one must be as right (or wrong) as another.

As for your contention that killing a valid target of war if he happens to hide somewhere else is “murder”, I reject that as absurd and self-serving. If the Axis high command took a holiday in Switzerland it hardly would have been murder for the allies to take them out. Killing your enemy’s chain of command in a war is not murder, it’s just sound strategy. The idea that a valid target of war is cool to kill if he’s in one patch of dirt but if he runs away to another he’s on home-base and you can’t tag him until you shout ‘red rover red rover let Hamasnik come over’, well…

Actually, your position is dramatically immoral. Mine is moral.

Despite all the protestations and arguing going on here, what you’re actually calling for here is either for terrorists to be allowed to operate with impunity (very immoral) or for an entire populace to be subjected to, at ‘best’, sanctions and at worst the fires of war. In other words, you are calling for a terorrist to be allowed to go on trying to kill civilians or to make even more civilians suffer and/or die in order to get that terrorist because in the Rules for Killing Terrorists According to Hoyle, that’s just the way it’s done. If it’s possible to take someone out via assassination rather than war/sanctions, then that is obviously far more moral than spreading the pain around.

My way nobody suffers other than the valid target of war. Your way leads to massive and unnecessary suffering for many innocents.
And you strangely call my position immoral, because some pieces of paper were involved and the killing took place on the wrong patch of dirt.

194

Here’s my evidence it has negative consequences. Countries make a big deal of it. In fact, the last time the Israelis looked like doing something similar, the British (and I’d appreciate you using that rather than Brits, not that I expect it to make a blind bit of difference), kicked up enough of a fuss that the Israelis promised never to do it again. Of course, countries risk good relations with allies all the time over something with no negative consequences.

However minimally, it increases the likelihood that Middle Eastern nations will look at a person travelling on a British passport and consider them a potential assassin - I would have thought that is self evident. That is a negative consequence for all British people travelling to Middle Eastern nations. Sitting there and saying “See, you can’t point to a person killed as a direct result of this” seems to me to be a little ridiculous.

The harm isn’t necessarily quantifiable, but I would have thought it to be bloody obvious. The passport you travel on matters. As I have said, I know plenty of people who choose to travel on their non-US passports to delicate spots of the world.

My bottom line is that if Mossad did this (which seems likely), I am going to shed no tears for the guy they killed. But if they did it using British passports, fake or real, after having specifically promised the British government they would not do that again, then it is a violation of the relationship between the two countries.

It’s not a violation worth going to war over, and I don’t think it is going to lead necessarily to British people being executed in the streets of Dubai. But it is a sufficient violation to warrant action, and I wouldn’t object to seeing a couple of Israeli diplomats packing their bags and having to leave London.

195

I just think it was stupid to march into a hotel with security cameras with no diguise or even attempt to avoid the cameras. What Israel has done is air out their intelligence operations to television sets all around the world. I have to ask: is there a comparable blunder in history? Has there ever been a state-sponsored assassination caught on video tape? that was distributed worldwide? Serious question. I’m not a historian, but didn’t this assassination tit-for-tat shit start World War I?

196

Until an international sovereign appears, the concept of international law seems to boil down to doing what the majority at the UN thinks is right, and in matters of peace and war, what will get by the security council.

Unfortunately, this has proved a disaster in terms of any sort of even handedness or objectivity - which are, generally, the key concepts behind any notion of the rule of law.

No-where is this more sadly evident than in the case of Israel, which is condemned far more often than any other country in the world - solely because so much of the world, namely most of the Arab and Muslim nations, have made Israel into their favourite folk devil, and routinely vote for condemnation.

The end result has been to undermine the prestige of the UN and international law itself. It is seen as nothing more than another stage for nations to struggle over, and Israelis rightly despise and ignore such a biased platform.

I think this often leads them into error, and into ignoring that others may have quite legitimate beefs with their behaviour - but such is inevitable when one is condemned routinely and unfairly. It makes one deaf to deserved condemnation as well.

When the UN has in the past declared that (uniquely) one countries’ form of nationalism is “racism” and not to be tolerated, that body has lost any pretense of having the ability to cogently rule on that countries’ acts.

197

Right, so you can’t point to any actual consequences, you cannot falsify the null hypothesis and the best you can do is “some countries make diplomatic noise about it.”

You would have thought that because you decided it’s true sans any actual proof. You yourself pointed out already that this is the second time a Brit passport has been used for clandestine activities (that was discovered). So show me the spike in Brits being accused of being assassins after the last one. Otherwise do us both a favor and admit that you’re just spitballing and cannot falsify the null hypothesis that things will be as things have been, and nothing bad happened.

To say nothing of the absurdity of it. Those looking for spies are not going to assume that Brit passports = spies but all the others are just fine, as it’s impossible for intelligence agencies to use Norwegian and Argentinian or Micronesian or…

It’s interesting that you’re pretty much refuting your own claims. People ascribe certain characteristics to foreign nationals, and some people would rather not be thought of as Americans. But even here nobody is ascribing anything to Brits, they’re ascribing it to Israelis who they claim stole Brit passports.

198

Not to mention the (kangaroo) court’s infamous verdict on Israel’s security barrier. Where the question under international law was one of whether security/military needs justified it, the court deliberately avoided looking at security/military considerations. It was so egregious that some members of the court itself commented.

It’s a farce when massive human rights violators are on the human rights committee and pretty much everything is ignored but Israel is a permanent fixture for condemnation by official vote.

199

Put bluntly, this strikes me as unlikely and not of real concern. It would be a real and cogent concern if the Mossad (assuming again it was them) always and invariably used fake British passports.

But as we all know, they don’t - they use all sorts of faked passports, from a wide variety of nations. Literally anyone could be an Israeli assassin. Thus, there is small possibility of the nationals of any one nation being as it were singled out.

200

No, what started World War 1 was an intricate and somewhat convoluted system of private and public alliances, social turmoil in a large nation, that led to a single assassination, which ended up having rippling effects of nations declaring war on eachother. As a result, other nations were forced (or obligated by treaty) to join the fray.

On the other hand, Israel has a history of fighting like a mad dog, and Dubai doesn’t even recognize their existence and doesn’t have nearly enough military might (UAE) to wage a war in Israel (Israel spends 8 times the money, has 3 times the active personnel and much more experience). Nor is the rest of the Arab world going to back the UAE on this, because frankly, they don’t want a war with Israel.

Israel’s good for politics, they’re the danger-next-door. As long as they don’t think Israel is going to actively invade them, they’ve got no serious motivation (or international justification) for war… and Israel knows that.

So, when Israel sees a chance to take out a high level target that they believe will have tangible benefits to them in the process, they take it. Why? Because there are minor negative consequences (burning a few spies, a little international poo-poohing, etc) which don’t (to them) outweigh the positives of killing this guy.

Am I upset? Not at all. Do I think it was bad form for them to use UK passports? Nah, I think it was bad form for them to get caught, but chances are they got some sort of approval from (or at least notification to) the UK.