So this is how the Zionist establishment wants to be known: defending extra-judicial murder. Well done, lads, you make us fellow Jews proud:
The nation’s peak Jewish organisation has warned it would be an “extreme” reaction for the government to expel an Israeli diplomat as retaliation for the fake passport scandal.
In its first public comments since Britain last week expelled an Israeli diplomat, raising pressure on Australia to follow suit, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry has called on the Rudd government to take a different path.
ECAJ president Robert Goot told The Australian: “I think it would be an extreme reaction or possibly an overreaction (to expel an Israeli diplomat). The Jewish community would hope the Australian government might adopt a more nuanced position, depending on the outcome of the (Australian Federal Police) investigation.”
The government says it will not make a decision on whether to take further diplomatic action against Israel until it receives a final report by the AFP into whether the Israeli government was involved in the use of fake Australian passports.
Four fake Australian passports were used by an assassination squad in Dubai in January during their murder of a Hamas leader, a plot widely believed to have been masterminded by Israeli spy agency Mossad.
Gordon Brown’s government in London last week expelled an Israeli diplomat as punishment for the use of British passports in the Dubai killings after a British report found it was “highly likely” that Israel was involved in the fake passports. The AFP has a copy of the British report, but Mr Goot said that other countries whose passports were used in the operation, including Germany, France and Ireland, had not expelled any diplomats.
Mr Goot added that Britain’s decision might have been linked to the domestic politics of that nation’s forthcoming election campaign. “We note with dismay the actions taken by the British government over the passport issue,” Mr Goot said.
He described as “sensible and astute” comments made last week by Tony Abbott, who called on the government not to expel an Israeli diplomat and to be sympathetic to Israel’s unique security situation.
Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser this week criticised the Opposition Leader’s comments as “thoroughly ill-advised” and said Australian politicians should not be blind to Israel’s faults.
Mr Goot said he believed the relationship between Israel and Australia would ultimately be unharmed by the controversy. He denied that there had been a slow drift in the relationship under the Rudd government.