Whoops. Mossad Agents sent to prison, NZ cuts dip ties with Israel

[Eli]

Originally posted by Azazel
Au contraire.

Whenever agents were busted, say spying after Hizbullah personel in cyprus, Israel did all it could to get the mossad agents out. If some drug dealers did something? usually no reaction.

But there was never such a big scandal around the capturing of drug dealers. Dont you think that if they were simply criminals Israel would've at least said so to shift away responsibility?

[Az]

There was never such a big scandal, because NZ claimed them to be Mossad agents. It's also quite possible that they were ex-agents, who got into crime ( lord knows there are plenty of those everywhere)

[MrWhereItsAt]

Azazel, I was actually specifically thinking of the grave desecration incident when I wrote what I wrote. The acts of those vandals are hideous and if anyone is caught doing this they should be prosecuted with the full force of the law. My point was that it was just property that was attacked. There is a quantum leap between desecrating graves and physically attacking a person for their race, nationality or religion. My point was that there would not just be anti-Semitic seeming attacks in many other countries, but there would be attacks ON Jews and Israelis. Look at France, where such attacks happen quite often. I am not excusing the defacement, but I am saying that the reaction here is not as bad as it would be if this had happened in almost any other nation.

The NZ passport's reputation and NZ citizens WOULD have been harmed had these guys got away with it and started using real NZ passports. If you know agents of a foreign and possibly unfriendly nation (for most Muslim nations) are using NZ passports, you will no longer trust people with those passports as much. This is the start of the sort of suspicion NZ has avoided until now at least, carefully built up based on government policies for decades and it no doubt aids in protecting NZers in less Western-friendly places all over the world. Endanger that trust and you are potentially endangering every NZer who leaves the country, and in fact you make NZ more attractive for a terrorist strike! This is, in this time of cultural clash and extremist attacks, about the greatest danger that can be inflicted upon a nation short of a direct physical attack.

Btw, why do everyone assume that they are agents? Did they admit? Did Israel admit? Israeli criminals are pretty active internationally and they could also have some use of NZ passports.

Though the Israeli refusal to apologize is pretty weird. I'm certain that if they were drug smugglers or something Israel would've expressed regret for the actions of it's citizens. The current silence is indicative that they do have connection to the security establishment, but again, does anyone knows for certain?

This is a good point to consider, Eli. So far all that has been said is that our PM has some evidence pointing towards them being Israeli security men in some capacity. ALthough no evidence has been provided publically that I know about (and I would not take it as writ that they ARE Mossad agents without some good evidence), I know that the NZ government does not mess with their international issues lightly. If a stand is taken it is a well-considered stand and well-supported. I do trust our current PM (and in fact every NZ PM I have been aware of during my life), and it is this reason I am so firm on my views here. The NZ government has a policy and sticks to it, consistently. We fell out of favour with the US somewhat due to proclaiming ourselves nuclear-free, but have recently regained some of that trust with providing troops for rooting out terrorists in Afghanistan, and providing reconstruction personnel (only) and money to help repair Iraq. We didn't choose to suck up to the US, but to follow our principles and to do what was going to help the situation, rather than providing combat troops for a war our government did not support.

It is indeed perhaps a little suspicious the Israeli government is taking its time. I think they are probably making sure that these guys are not Mossad agents or there is no obtainable proof they are such agents before saying anything. They have likely screwed up, and are now being a lot more cautious than they were.

[Agathon]

Why can't the Israelis on this board admit that their government is completely in the wrong over this?

If the NZ government says that they are agents, they almost certainly are. People like to think that the NZ security services are stupid, but they work very well (well enough to thoroughly embarrass the French government over the RW).

And those who desecrated the graves will be found and punished. We don't put up with that crap in NZ. Anti-semitism is not really a big deal in NZ - there aren't many Jewish people and religion is, in any case, a private matter.

The only other cases in recent memory were the protests against a holocaust denying PhD candidate at a NZ university (a campaign that I and friends of mine participated in), and some American Jewish academic who complained that the NZ university scene was thoroughly anti-semitic (this one was hilarious: virtually every Jewish academic in NZ wrote to say that he was full of it).

In fact, anti-Islamic violence is worse. The local mosque where I used to live had been attacked twice in a couple of years before I left.

[Kuciwalker]

If the NZ government says that they are agents, they almost certainly are.

[Agathon]

We have a good track record with this sort of thing and no reason to accuse them of being something that they aren't.