Friday 26 February 2010

DUBAI ASSASSINATION #12: HA'ARETZ STORIES

Crying, complaining, whining, pointing fingers,
denying his fingers are in the cookie jar,
Lieverman lies and studies a bit about
how to maybe look innocent at the same time.

Lieberman on Dubai assassination: Arabs always blame Israel

Ha'aretz
FEBRUARY 23, 2010

The Arabs nations blame Israel for anything that happens in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told his Irish counterpart during a meeting in Brussels on Monday, adding that there are many other power struggles in the region which could have resulted in the operation.


"The Arabs have a tendency to blame Israel for anything that happens in the Middle East," the Israeli FM said, adding that the region "has many internal struggles within groups and states which are not as democratic as Israel is."

Truth hurt Lieberman?

Meanwhile on Monday, the U.K.'s Europe Minister Chris Bryant says a total of eight forged U.K. passports were used in the Dubai slaying of a top Hamas operative, two more than had been previously disclosed.

During the meeting between Lieberman and Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin, the Israeli FM was asked about the use of fraudulent Irish passports by the suspected assassins of Hamas strongman Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Martin also reportedly questioned Lieberman about the fact that the Dubai police chief had stated he was "99 percent" sure that the Israeli Mossad was responsible for the operation.

Lieberman said that there wasn't
"even one story indicating that Israel was implicated in the assassination. If anyone other than the Media would have claimed otherwise we would have addressed the issue, but as that there are no such allegations, there is no need to address it further."
Please can I call him a nasty old arrogant lying turd? Please?

The Israeli FM later met with British FM David Miliband, where he was also reportedly asked about the alleged use of fake U.K. passports in the January assassination in Dubai.

After the meeting, the British foreign secretary said that he told Lieberman that Israel needs to cooperate with the investigation launched by Dubai into the assassination of a Hamas official using forged European passports.

He said he underlined to Lieberman "the importance we attach to Israel cooperating with that investigation. It is very important that people know that we continue to take this issue very seriously indeed."

According to Miliband, the Israeli foreign minister replied saying "he had no information at this stage."

Both Miliband and Martin have made strong statements in recent days condemning the forging of passports and theft of identities.

Words are cheap. If things don't get properly answered, perhaps some actions would do more.

Earlier Monday, European Union foreign ministers condemned the use of forged European passports by assassins who killed a Palestinian militant in Dubai, but made no direct reference to Israel.

Diplomatic sources said that the statement was intended to censure Israel over its alleged involvement in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last month ~ though other senior European sources said the statement would not formally link Israel with the assassination or the forging of passports.

Israel has declined to confirm or deny any involvement.

"The EU strongly condemns the fact that those involved in this action [assassination] used fraudulent EU member states' passports and credit cards acquired through the theft of EU citizens' identities," a declaration on behalf of EU foreign ministers said.

Another senior diplomat said EU ambassadors had been summoned for consultations by Foreign Ministry officials in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

During the meeting, Abu Dhabi officials requested that EU foreign ministers, who will convene in Brussels on Monday for a conference, issue a communique over the use of European passports in the Mabhouh operation. The UAE is also demanding an explicit EU statement supporting the Emirates' authorities who are investigating the case.

According to the European source, the UAE government did not blame Israel for carrying out the assassination nor did it request that Israel be cited in the EU statement.

The source added that senior officials from Germany, France, Britain, Ireland and the EU met Sunday to agree on the language of the statement. Ireland is advocating the hardest line among all EU members by demanding that the statement explicitly refer to Israel.

According to the European source, the communique will include three key elements: the EU's condemnation of the use of European passports by members of the assassination team, an expression of support for the UAE government and investigators in Dubai, and a commitment to investigate the passport forgeries and theft identities as quickly as possible.

Discussions over the wording of the statement are expected to continue until Monday evening, by when it is likely to be released.

Meanwhile, the commander of the Dubai police revealed additional details about the January 20 assassination.

The police official, Dahi Khalfan, said the police had information that would not be disclosed currently but which related to the use by some of the assassins of diplomatic passports to enter Dubai.

The Dubai police chief added that some of the hit squad had been in the emirate for at least a year before the killing and used the same passports. He made the remarks to Al-Bayan, a newspaper published in the UAE.

Khalfan said the information that led to the killing of Mabhouh came from an associate of a senior Hamas official, according to a statement published in another UAE newspaper, Al-Khaleej. Khalfan has been reported as saying the associate gave information about Mabhouh's arrival in Dubai.

Over the weekend, Hamas officials criticized Mabhouh's conduct. Hamas legislator Salah Bardawil said Mabhouh endangered himself by ordering airline tickets over the Internet and said the senior Hamas official even notified Mabhouh's family about where in Dubai Mabhouh was staying. Mabhouh's brother, however, denied that the family had received such information. For their part, Hamas spokesmen denied the Dubai police chief's account.

One spokesman, Sami Abu Zahari, denied there was an informant in Hamas. Another senior Hamas official criticized the Dubai authorities for failing to sufficiently involve the group in their investigation.

Moreover, Arab media reported yesterday that the UAE has asked Egypt to officially lodge a protest with Israel over the assassination as well as the alleged participation of two Palestinians who were arrested in connection with the hit.

Abu Dhabi's national security adviser met over the weekend with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. UAE officials said the arrested Palestinians were former members of the Palestinian Authority security apparatus

I believe that the international community needs to get tougher with Israel. The main reason why solutions cannot be reached is the preferential treatment that Israel gets. When other countries violate international law, they get punished, except for Israel. If war crimes are committed, other countries get punished, except Israel.

Israel behaves in the international community like a spoiled child, doing what it wants without being questioned or punished and fussing like a brat if spoken to over anything negative in relation to it. Pure bully behaviour!

I also see it as being very possible that these Israeli assassins have been dealt with by now. Maybe they were assassinated themselves for creating such a mess or perhaps are lying in a hospital awaiting a new face. Stranger things have happened.


Top EU official:
Dubai hit may harm ties with Israel


Ha'aretz News
February 21, 2010

A senior EU diplomat said on Sunday that Israel's suspected role in the slaying of a Hamas militant in Dubai and the killers' alleged use of forged EU passports will harm Israel's relations with the European bloc.

The official said the passport controversy will be harmful for the way Israel is treated by the EU since it comes on top of strong criticism over Israel's 2008 attack on Gaza.

The EU diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive topic on Sunday, a day before the EU's 27 foreign ministers are due to meet in Brussels. Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will also be in Brussels to see EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, among others.

Dubai police say at least 11 suspects in the Jan. 19 killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh used altered British, Irish, French and German passports

Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said that the assassins in Dubai made use of diplomatic passports, the Emirati newspaper Al-Bayan reported on Sunday.

Tamim also added that some of the assassins were already in Dubai for at least a year before the assassination, and used the passports in question.

Earlier on Sunday, a top Emirati official urged European investigators to launch full-scale probes into how fraudulent passports were used by a hit squad accused of killing Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

The U.A.E.'s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said the Gulf country is deeply concerned that the suspected assassins used expertly doctored passports from nations that don't require advance U.A.E. visas.

"The U.A.E. is deeply concerned by the fact that passports of close allies, whose nationals currently enjoy preferential visa waivers, were illegally used to commit this crime," Gargash said in a statement, carried by the Emirates' state-run news agency WAM on Sunday.

Dubai's police chief Tamim has blamed Israel's Mossad secret service.

"The abuse of passports poses a global threat, affecting both countries' national security as well as the personal security of travelers," the Emirates' Foreign Minister Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan was quoted saying in the same statement.

The statement gave no updates on the investigation, but said the Emirates' and Dubai authorities continue to scrutinize events that led to Mabhouh's killing and its aftermath.

The authorities also remain in close contact with the concerned European governments, the statement added and listed the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Germany and Austria.

Emirati officials also said on Sunday that at least two more fraudulent Irish passports have been linked to the alleged hit squad accused of killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Earlier this week, Tamim told reporters in Dubai that the alleged assassins used foreign cell phone cards to avoid being traced while calling a command center in Austria.

British ministers believe the forged U.K. passports used by the team accused of assassinating Mabhouh were secretly copied at Ben-Gurion airport, the British daily telegraph reported earlier Sunday.

British diplomatic sources said ministers were told in a briefing that the passport fraud was committed by Israeli immigration officials who stopped the British nationals, now living in Israel, as they went through the airport on recent trips.

According to the Telegraph report, officials believe the passport numbers were photocopied and then used to create new documents used by the hit squad.

The suspects used the fake passports bearing their own pictures, but with the names and numbers of innocent Europeans.

All six British passports were not biometric, which means they did not have a computer chip embedded in them. Experts told the newspaper the fraud would have been relatively simple to carry out.

The identities of French, German and Irish citizens were also used.

Germany probing identity of passport-holder tied to hit

German officials on Saturday said they are examining the identity of Michael Bodenheimer, the name that appeared on a genuine German passport allegedly used in Mabhouh's.


The authorities in the city of Cologne, where the passport was issued, began a probe, and federal authorities are now considering a move of their own.

According to German weekly Der Spiegel, Bodenheimer, an Israeli, applied for a German passport from the Cologne authorities. Bodenheimer presented documents that proved German lineage, including his grandparents' marriage certificate. He also showed his Israeli passport that was issued to him a year earlier in Tel Aviv.

The German passport was issued on June 18, 2009. That document was used by one of the assassination suspects in Dubai on January 19, a day before the killing.

According to Der Spiegel, Bodenheimer does not live in Cologne, as he had claimed in his application, and no other person by that name lives there. The magazine claims a man by that name lived in Herzliya until June last year.

Haaretz has learned that a Michael Bodenheimer lives in Bnei Brak. His wife told Haaretz in a telephone interview that "he has no German passport and he never asked for such a passport. He never visited Germany, except perhaps in transit on the way to the United States."

His wife added that the ultra-Orthodox family does not have any family in Herzliya and that even though Bodenheimer's grandparents were born in Germany, they emigrated to the United States, from where he immigrated to Israel 30 years ago.

"We are quiet people and are not used to so much attention," she told Haaretz on Saturday. "The past week since the news of this story broke has been difficult for us. The fact that someone is using his name does not make him involved in this story."

Bodenheimer studies at a kollel, a yeshiva for married men. He has said he was astounded to see his name on the list of suspects, supposedly belonging to a German citizen.

"At first we didn't understand what everyone was talking about," Bodenheimer's daughter said. "The picture that was published doesn't look like him at all. He is always busy with Torah study," she said, adding that he holds no citizenship other than Israeli and American.

German media have reported that the intelligence services of the country are certain that the Mossad was involved in the killing and that the foreign minister demanded that Israel explain why it used a German passport.

Israel's ambassador to Berlin, Yoram Ben-Ze'ev, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where he was asked about information that can shed light on the killing of Mabhouh.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Saturday that he does not expect relations between Israel and European countries whose passports were used in the assassination to deteriorate as a result of the incident.

"I do not expect a crisis in relations because there is nothing linking Israel to the assassination. Britain, France and Germany are countries with shared interests with Israel in countering terrorism," Ayalon said, naming three of the four countries whose passports were used. At least three of the suspects used Irish passports.

DO THEY PLAN ON WHITE WASHING THIS? WHY THEN ALL THE FUSS ~ JUST TO APPEASE THE NAIVE POPULACE? TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION OF DOING SOMETHING? YOUR "FRIEND" STEALS FROM YOU, ABUSES YOUR TRUST, TAKES A LIFE, AND IT IS NOTHING?

LIVNI ON DUBAI HIT :
A DEAD TERRORIST IS GOOD NEWS

Ha'aretz News
February 23, 02, 2010

Opposition leader and Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni on Tuesday praised the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai last month, marking the first such comment from a top Israeli official.

Tzipi Livni, speaking at the closing panel of the board of trustees of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, said the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was good news, but did not say who was behind the killing.

Authorities in Dubai have said they were nearly certain Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, was behind the death of Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel room in Dubai on January 20.

"The entire world must support those fighting terrorism: an American, British or Israeli soldier regardless if he is in Gaza or Dubai. The fact that a terrorist was killed, and it doesn't matter if it was in Dubai or Gaza, is good news to those fighting terrorism," said Livni.

I love how she throws the word "terrorrist" around when she was a Mossad assassin in her past and the country she loves so much is a rogue terrorist nation, and her parents were high level assassins for Irgun. Does she not see the contradiction here? No, of course not, she is on the good side and all others suspect. I think the worst thing I could wish upon her is that at least one of her sons becomes a shministim! She would be so embarrassed I am sure to have a child who puts peace before war. Look good on ya Tzip.

Also on Tuesday, Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said that the attribution of the Mabhouh assassination to Israel increases the country's power of deterrence, Army Radio reported.

"These actions deter terrorist organizations, as well as states, who understand the capabilities of Israel's intelligence," said Halutz at a conference in Tel Aviv.

Halutz also referred to the assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, which has also been blamed on Israel, saying, "When Mughniyeh was killed, it caused immediate damage to Hezbollah. Beyond the direct result of removing a significant man from the game, it sowed fear in the next in line [to replace him.]"

"Nasrallah has been sitting in a bunker for three years for fear that 'his soul would be returned to its creator,'" said Halutz referring to the Hezbollah leader

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