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Mossad’s Murderous Reach: The Larger Political Issues

James Petras | 22.02.2010 18:18 | Anti-militarism | Palestine | Repression | World

Mossad death squads operate directly under the Israeli Prime Minister (who personally approved the recent murder).The vast majority of Israelis proudly support these assassinations, especially when the killers escape detection and capture. The unfettered operation of foreign state-sponsored death squads, carrying out extra-judicial assassinations with impunity, is a serious threat to every critic, writer, political leader and civic activist who dares to criticize Israel.



On January 19 Israel’s international secret police, the Mossad, sent an eighteen member death squad to Dubai using European passports, supposedly ‘stolen’ from Israeli dual citizens and altered with fake photos and signatures, in order to assassinate the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud al Mabhouh.

The evidence is overwhelming: The Dubai police presentation of detailed security videos of the assassins was corroborated by the testimony of Israeli security experts and applauded by Israel’s leading newspapers and columnists. The Mossad openly stated that Mabhouh was a high priority target who had survived three previous assassination attempts. Israel did not even bother to deny the murder. Furthermore, the sophisticated communication system used by the killers, the logistics and planning surrounding their entry and exit from Dubai and the scope and scale of the operation have all the characteristics of a high-level state operation. Furthermore, only Mossad would have access to the European passports of its dual citizens! Only Mossad would have the capacity, motivation, stated intent and willingness to provoke a diplomatic row with its European allies, knowing full well that Western European governments’ anger would blow over because of their deep links to Israel. After meticulous investigation and the interrogation of 2 captured Palestinian Mossad collaborators, the Dubai police chief has stated he is sure the Mossad was behind the killing.


The Larger Political Issues

Israel’s policy of overseas assassination raises profound issues that threaten the basis of the modern state: sovereignty, rule of law and national and personal security.

Israel has a publicly-stated policy of violating the sovereignty of any and all countries in order to kill or abduct its opponents. In both proclamation and actual practice, Israeli law, decrees and actions abroad supersede the laws and law enforcement agencies of any other nation. If Israel’s policy becomes the common practice world-wide, we would enter a savage Hobbesian jungle in which individuals would be subject to the murderous intent of foreign assassination squads unrestrained by any law or accountable national authority. Each and every state could impose its own laws and cross national borders in order to murder other nation’s citizens or residents with impunity. Israel’s extra-territorial assassinations make a mockery of the very notion of national sovereignty. Extra-territorial secret police elimination of opponents was a common practice of the Nazi Gestapo, Stalin’s GPU and Pinochet’s DINA and has now become the sanctioned practice of the US “Special Forces” and the CIA clandestine division. Such policies are the hallmark of totalitarian, dictatorial and imperialist states, which systematically trample on the sovereign rights of peoples.

Israel’s practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial assassinations, exemplified by the recent murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room, violates all the fundamental precepts of the rule of law. Extra-judicial killings ordered by a state, mean its own secret police are judge, jury, prosecutor and executioner, unrestrained by sovereignty, law and the duty of nations to protect their citizens and visitors. Evidence, legal procedures, defense and cross examinations are obliterated in the process. State-sponsored, extra-judicial murder completely undermines due process. Liquidation of opponents abroad is the logical next step after Israel’s domestic show trials, based on the application of its racial laws and administrative detention decrees, which have dispossessed the Palestinian people and violated international laws.

Mossad death squads operate directly under the Israeli Prime Minister (who personally approved the recent murder).The vast majority of Israelis proudly support these assassinations, especially when the killers escape detection and capture. The unfettered operation of foreign state-sponsored death squads, carrying out extra-judicial assassinations with impunity, is a serious threat to every critic, writer, political leader and civic activist who dares to criticize Israel.


Mossad Murders - Zionist Fire

The precedent of Israel killing its adversaries abroad, establishes the outer boundaries of repression by its overseas supporters in the leading Zionist organizations, most of whom have now and in the past supported Israel’s violation of national sovereignty via extra-judicial killings. If Israel physically eliminates its opponents and critics, the 51 major American Jewish organizations economically repress Israel’s critics in the US. They actively pressure employers, university presidents and public officials to fire employees, academics and professionals who dare to speak or write against Israeli torture, killing and systematic dispossession of Palestinians.

So far, most critical comments, in Israel and elsewhere, of Mossad’s recent murder in Dubai focus on the agents’ “incompetence”, including allowing their faces to be captured on numerous security videos as they clumsily changed their wigs and costumes under the camera gaze . Other critics complain that the bungling Mossad is “tarnishing Israel’s image” as a democratic state and providing ammunition for the anti-Semites. None of these superficial criticisms have been repeated by the US Congress, White House or the Presidents of the Major Jewish American organizations, where the mafia rule of Omerga, or silence, reigns supreme and criminal complicity is the rule.


Conclusion

While the critics bemoan the clumsy Mossad job, making it harder for Western powers to provide Israel with diplomatic cover for its operations abroad, the fundamental issue is never addressed: The Mossad’s acquisition and alteration of official British, French, German and Irish passports of dual Israeli citizen’s underscores the cynical and sinister nature of Israel’s exploitation of its dual citizens in the pursuit of its own bloody foreign policy goals. Mossad’s use of genuine passports issued by four sovereign European nations to its citizens in order to murder a Palestinian in a Dubai hotel room raises the question of to whom ‘dual’ Israeli citizens really owe their allegiance and just how far they are willing to go in defending or promoting Israel’s overseas assassinations.

Thanks to Israel’s use of British passports to enter Dubai and murder an adversary, every British businessperson or tourist traveling in the Middle East will be suspected of links to Israeli death squads. With elections this year and the Labor and Conservative parties counting heavenly on Zionist millionaires for campaign funding, it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown will do more than whimper and cringe!

James Petras
- Homepage: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17746

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Flashback: Extrajudicial assassinations as official Israeli policy

22.02.2010 18:20


Flashback: Extrajudicial assassinations as official Israeli policy

by Stephen Lendman, Global Research, November 19, 2008


Extra-judicial killings are indefensible, morally abhorrent, and illegal under international laws and norms. Article 23b of the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibits "assassination, proscription, or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering a reward for any enemy 'dead or alive.' "

http://  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11041

Stephen Lendman
- Homepage: http:// http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11041


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Flashback: Extrajudicial assassinations as official Israeli policy

22.02.2010 19:10


Flashback: Extrajudicial assassinations as official Israeli policy

by Stephen Lendman, 19 November 2008


Stephen Lendman
- Homepage: http:// http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11041


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Flashback: The assassination of Rafik Hariri: A biased investigation

22.02.2010 19:12

The site of a massive explosion that killed former Lebanese PM Hariri in 2005
The site of a massive explosion that killed former Lebanese PM Hariri in 2005


Flashback: The assassination of Rafik Hariri: A biased investigation

by Silvia Cattori, 15 September 2006

(translated by Alexander Davidis and Ard Vangern)


Silvia Cattori
- Homepage: http://www.voltairenet.org/article143460.html


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Flashback: Extrajudicial assassinations as official Israeli policy

22.02.2010 22:39



Flashback: Extrajudicial assassinations as official Israeli policy

by Stephen Lendman, 19 November 2008


Extra-judicial killings are indefensible, morally abhorrent, and illegal under international laws and norms. Article 23b of the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibits "assassination, proscription, or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering a reward for any enemy 'dead or alive.' "




* Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at  lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Stephen Lendman
- Homepage: http://hhttp://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11041


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Flashback: The assassination of Rafik Hariri: A biased investigation

22.02.2010 22:42

The site of a massive explosion that killed former Lebanese PM Hariri in 2005
The site of a massive explosion that killed former Lebanese PM Hariri in 2005


Flashback: The assassination of Rafik Hariri: A biased investigation

by Silvia Cattori, Voltairenet, 15 September 2006

(translated by Alexander Davidis and Ard Vangern)


Editorial note: A former criminal investigator of the GDR, who became a journalist after the reunification of Germany, Jürgen Cain Külbel is the author of a counter-investigation on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, which the Voltaire Network presented to the Arab public during a widely covered conference in Damascus, May 7, 2006. In this interview, he discusses the political role of the UN Commission and the unexploited leads pointing to Israeli responsibility.

_______________


Silvia Cattori
- Homepage: http://www.voltairenet.org/article143460.html


perspective and not extrapolating into a fantasy world of what-ifs

24.02.2010 08:21

"....every critic, writer, political leader and civic activist who dares to criticize Israel. "

I think thats a bit far fetched. The Hamas leader was neither a critic, writer, political leader or civic activist. He is someone fwho called for the destruction of Israel and was heavily involved with the supplying of weapons to reach that end.

That clearly makes him the enemy of the people of Israel.
(thats why the assassination had so much public support).

Now you can choose to sit back and let someone say they are going to destroy you and supply weapons to that end, or (if it is within your power), you can do something about it.

I'm struggling to think of any countries that kill "critics, writers, political leaders and civic activists" apart from the so-called banana republics and places like the former Iraq (remember chemical Ali?) and even Iran is looking that way.

ed


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