11 burned spies, an exposed modus operandi, a diplomatic row with UAE/Ireland/France/UK (possibly Germany), and one dead terrorist. The final arbitrators of this mission will be the Israeli people, but the Mossad seems to have cocked this one up; not royally, but this is a certain cock up.
Now, if they failed the mission, absorbed causalities, or killed/hurt innocents… that would have been a “royal cock up” (The most grievous of all cock ups).
Qatar is actually majority expatriate: AFAICT, most of the non-Arabic speakers are South and Southeast Asians. Same for the UAE.
Sure. And as you dodged the fact that it’s had no real effect and hasn’t caused any ‘tipping point’ yet, I take it you concede that there aren’t any actual harmful effects that we’ve seen for the historical use of this practice and only a hypothetical claim to future effects that is in contradiction to historical facts.
You can call it goalpost shifting all you want, but if the only real argument against this practice (it will endanger civilians) is shown to be non-existent and there are no other real arguments, then “does this have any actual negatives?” is not goalpost shifting at all.
Sure, but I don’t think “Well, we seem to have gotten away with it so far without any horrible consequences” is the same thing as a justification.
Ah. I knew South Asian expatriates formed a substantial part of the UAE, but I didn’t realize the same was true of Qatar. (And apparently, according to Wikipedia, Oman as well, though not to as large an extent. Still, Indian workers all over the Middle East…)
The justification is that it allows agents to act under various covers. If you’re claiming it’s not justified then there has to be a reason why. “Getting away with it so far” is a nice rephrase of the fact that “well, there’s no evidence that this is actually damaging”. If you’re positing that it might be at some point, I’d again ask where the tipping point lies and why.
You can’t look at it as a tipping point in that manner. Travel on a particular passport has various risks attached. Every time people on British passports are involved in assassinations, then the risk of travelling on a British passport increases. It doesn’t have to reach the point that people are banned from entering Arab countries on British passports, or dragged off and shot if they do. We are already at the point that people feel it safer for themselves, as I mentioned, to travel on Irish passports rather than US ones. People make these calculations, and Israel, by using British passports, has increased the risk for every single British traveller. That’s just not something you do to an allied nation, and it warrants countermeasures.
Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have a problem with MI5 taking out an Islamicist Imam in Paris as part of a false-flag operation leaving evidence behind that Mossad was responsible?
Seems to me the real debate is whether nations should use spies and assassins at all.
Assuming that they do, and doing so is a good idea both in terms of amoral realism and/or morally justified, it makes no sense to be upset over their use of false documents.
The real issue is whether killing people by covert means through the use of assassins is “okay”.
Frankly, I just don’t see why there’s even a debate. I can understand that Israel can’t use it’s own passports when they want to kill someone, so they’ll try to do something else (like forging foreign identities)
However, why should the UK, France, Ireland, Germany and the UAE just passively accept that Israel will be forging their passports? That just doesn’t make sense. The UK, France, Ireland, Germany and the UAE will look after their own interests and not meekly “take it on the chin” whenever another country screws them like this…
Israel must make a cost/benefit analysis to how much do they want to piss off these countries (especially UK/France).
What exactly do you expect the UK to do about it? They aren’t going to war with Israel. They are not going to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel. In theory, I suppose they could make their passports harder to forge, but what else can they really do?
Unless the agents are actually caught in the act, there isn’t a lot the other countries can do about it, other than what they are doing. Israel routinely refuses to confirm or deny that it was them whenever someone accuses them of such acts, and even if ‘everyone knows’, that isn’t proof; and even if it was proved, what then?
Seems to me that what will likely happen is some diplomatic harumphing. Israel has a pretty thick skin for diplomatic harumphing, given the cry-wolf behaviour of most of the rest of the world towards Israeli misdeads whether real or imagined. Also, given the target, that harumphing is likely to be half hearted at most.
Yes, I can. And I’d go even further and state that the lack of any historical backlash coupled with the fact that nobody believes that the passports were genuine means this issue is a wash. British passports are no less safe today than they were last month. What, the spy-checkers looking for Israeli agents have a list of ‘approved passports’ that might be used? Brits are now to be scrutinized, but Norwegians are above suspicion?
I’ll go one further. I believe it is not only okay but that forgoing assassination and opting for much messier tactics like sanctions or war is powerfully immoral (not to mention pragmatically inefficient much of the time). Sanctions harm broad swaths of a populace and often don’t effect their targets as warlords can hoard food and such. War is impossible to wage without collateral damage.
But an assassin’s bullet (or cell phone bomb, or what have you) can remove a target cleanly and efficiently. The argument that it’s somehow bad because you have to do it on another nation’s soil is somewhat silly. If you had a target under your jurisdiction, you could simply arrest them. If you cannot, then of course you can only get to them on someone else’s turf.
I don’t think many people in America, for instance, would’ve been all that sad if we found Bin Ladin in Afghanistan and bombed him back into his component atoms. Or that many Allied nations’ citizens would’ve been upset if we could’ve taken out the entire Axis leadership. Or what have you.
I’d like to see some Israeli diplomats packing their bags.
The UK can do whatever (if you think of it, they can do it) until they get a firm assurance that Israel won’t be using their forged passports. Bad relations with four influential European countries is just not something that Israel wants.
And lets be frank, do you really think the Israeli people will stand by and let themselves be turned into a pariah state?
This, and;
This.
That’s only because cricket is a dumb sport. 
Just fyi, Israel, if you need an American passport to off someone like this for next time, you can use mine.
Frankly, this is the single biggest factor against me thinking Israelis didn’t do it. Of course, I still think it was probably an Israeli operation… but everyone agreeing that it was Israel is the biggest (really, the only) thing that makes me think it wasn’t (aside from the poor form).
The correct response is a diplomatic Hi-Five.
I’ll lend them a hand, and a gun. Do bad things, and bad things happen to you. I’m all for the criminal justice system, but there are blatant times when it fails to apply – internationally is one of them.
Damn right, stick it to those Americans and the Zionists who control them! :rolleyes:
Are you kidding me?
With the Anti-Jewish cartoons that Hamas cranks out (Comic cite), you think that this is going to greatly effect recruiting for anti-Israeli/Anti-American terrorism? (Yes, I’m aware Hamas isn’t a player in the wars in Afghanistan/Iraq, but you understand the point I’m making, no doubt?)
It’s not a good idea for anyone to have a military incursion into anyone elses land. However, sometimes it’s the best option you have. Best option and good option are entirely separate though.
A good option would be for everyone to just stop fighting, and be done with it. However, since that’s not on the table, you work with what you’ve got.
Do you understand the definition of Terrorism?
Terrorism is specifically designed to insight terror. This wasn’t designed to do that, it was designed to kill a specific individual.
One persons Terrorist is another persons Freedom Fighter.
And a Freedom Fighter is just a Founding Father before the war’s won.
That’s the root of this issue, not that “he did this, she did that,” but that no matter how you slice the cake, neither side is inherently wrong or right. Each side has merits to their case, and until both sides can put the past behind them, suck it up and get on with their lives, the bloodshed will continue.
Nah, they’ll be welcome in the USA and Israel for as long as they live (and possibly China, depending on just how close Israel and China really are).
Support is always conditional. Even my support is conditional, and according to my (Christian-)Palestinian former classmate (who I was pretty good friends with) I was a “damn dirty Zionist” (said in the best possible way).
That doesn’t help anyone, and it’s more of a tourist inconvenience than a real punishment for a nation.
A real-life example is the assasination by allied agents of Heydrich. The allies decided to not do such assassinations in the future because the Nazi response was so harsh - extermination of the population of Lidice.
However, assuming that such retaliation is not likely (and I doubt Hamas has the ability to conduct Nazi-like exterminations in the UK 
), it would be I think silly to condemn the allies on moral grounds for ordering the assassination if the assassins had used (say) a neutral country’s passport to gain access to the Nazi leader (they didn’t in that case, they were parachuted in).
Huh? Are you saying that I don’t have a point because some Arab countriesare at war with all Jews ?
There is simply no justification for the way Jews are treated in Arab countries like Syria. Period.
And the offence that Israeli citizens and Jews endure at the hands of many of these Arab countries pales in comparison to the offence of a forged identity document.
Do you really think the UK, France, or Germany has any intention whatsoever of turning Israel into a pariah state? That’s simply not going to happen. Those countries know it, Israel knows it, the U.S. knows it, I know it, and you oughta know it.
The U.S. will never abandon Israel. The U.K. (and the rest of N.A.T.O.) will never abandon the U.S.; China doesn’t care. I doubt India gives a damn. Russia may be mildly perturbed, but they mostly pay lip service to supporting Iran these days. The rest of the world, particularly the non-nuclear world, just doesn’t matter for these purposes. No sanctions against Israel for this incident are going to clear the U.N. Security Council. Doubtful that any will even make it that far.
Flying Dutchman
I have seen so many very poor arguments on message boards before, but yours is just so rubbish on so many levels that it is difficult to know where to start.
First, the UK does not ban Israelis from its territory, perhaps that is because we are capable of recognising the differance between the law abiding majority, and criminals. You will also note, we don’t ban inhabitants of any nation due solely to their religion or nationality.We do ban individuals, some of them are world leaders, and we do this because of their behaviour.
Next, we do not have a war on Muslims, we are in conflict with some people who describe themselves that way, but it is a far stretch to use this as any sort of debate point, and frankly you are intellectually dishonest, and that is about the very worst thing one poster can say about another in GD.
For your information, to dispel your startling ignorance, being anti semitic is not the same as being anti-Israeli, you are aware that very many Muslims are derived from Semitic roots, probably not, given your rather ill informed post.
Next, being anti-crime, in this case international terrorism and murder, is not being anti -Israel, or anti-Semitic, it is what it is.
Perhaps you are saying that automatically, being anti- terrorist crime is also anti-Israel, which is rather silly. It would also mean that I believe that every Israeli is a criminal.
I am not in the practice of kindergarten debating but it seems this is not the position of everyone in this thread. There is one notable exception.
I do not accept that to continue to exist,Israel should be given a pass to commit murder and behave as a terrorist, cross international borders and put citizens of other nations at risk, solely for its self interest, and to the exclusion of that of it’s allies and innocent parties.
My view is reasonably straightforward, the rule of law applies, no matter what the motives or supposed justification, a crime of murder is a crime of murder, and export to other nations makes it terrorism. Many Israelis are fine with this action, but many will not, in any case, if Israelis and their agencies wish to break international law, they cannot be allowed to drag others into their squabbles.
I do not yet see any distinction between the people who planned authorised and undertook this murder and those with whom I am charged with ensuring stay off the streets of my country for their criminal behaviour.
They are all criminals but the ones I deal with have been handled through our judiciary, international executions and state sponsored terrorists are not, which makes the particular Israelis involved somewhat worse than the muggers, rapists, burglars and other assorted scum I deal with on a daily basis.
Given that this is state run terrorism, I doubt there will be much comeback on the criminals, since the government - by sending out this mission - has itself become criminal.
We took the view of the Bulgarian government when it eliminated opposition, that it was effectively a terrorist oragnisation, the US bombed Libya because it wanted to discourage that country from sponsoring terrorism, we had serious diplomatic issues when Russia murdered Litvenenko, I think our government, and most others will be hypocritical and inconsistant, Israel will not suffer any such censure.
Still will not make it right, its still murder.
I know for an absolute fact that the UK, France, or Germany (and Ireland) have no interest whatso-ever in turing Israel into a pariah state. That is why Israel will back down to their demands. These countries will get assurances from Israel that their passports are off limits. Israel will agree. That is what will happen.
That is what happened for Canada and New Zealand when the news picked up on what Israel was doing with thier passports, and that is what will go on with the UK, France, Germany and Ireland. All countries are liberal democracies so there is no need for this row to go any further then that.
I know for a fact that Israel would never let it go father then that. They are not some rouge state like Iran. Neither are the UK, France, Germany and Ireland. Everyone is reasonable.