Posted by John, March 4th, 2010 - under Israel, Palestine.

Tags: Australian passports

Supporters of the Palestinians’ struggle for justice might well be amazed to see the Labor government criticising Israel.

Kevin Rudd, that self-proclaimed proud Zionist, said of Israel’s latest crime: “It is not just one of those little things that happens that you deal with today and it’s fixed tomorrow”.

You might be thinking he’s running at least 14 months late. This would have been a reasonable start as a response to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza in January 2009.

Perhaps they’ve just recognised the crimes against humanity mentioned in the Goldstone Report to the UN, such as dropping white phosphorous on heavily populated civilian areas in Gaza.

Or perhaps they’ve just realised that Gaza is the largest jail in the world with its 1.5 million people living amongst the rubble of their homes from that bombardment, unable to repair them because of Israel’s blockade.

Or they’ve seen the statistics which demonstrate clearly that Israel’s blockade is a deliberate act of genocide – for example, the World Health Organisation’s report a year ago that more than 10 per cent of children younger than five have stunted growth, a figure which is worsening every week the blockade continues.

But hell no, that’s all quite acceptable. So perhaps this government, which opposes the death penalty, objects to the assassination of an elected representative of the Palestinians for his political resistance? Well, no again.

Israel’s actual crime – passport fraud – impacts on Australian dignity as a power to be taken seriously in the pecking order of world imperialism. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith told the media:

“I made it crystal clear to the [Israeli] ambassador that if the results of [an investigation] cause us to come to the conclusion that the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, that Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend.”

Harsh words indeed from one of Israel’s staunchest and loudest supporters.

You might ask why Rudd and Smith have come out so stridently. After all, it’s well known that Mossad (the notorious Israeli secret service) regularly assassinates those fighting their atrocities.

It’s also well known that they use stolen identities from Western countries to get their operatives into countries that would never admit them under their own; at least one book has been published documenting these activities, and scandals involving New Zealand are on public record.

What is at stake is the validity of Australian citizenship and the doors it opens. Australia won’t stand for anything that might lessen the standing of its documents around the world. Australia expects its citizens to be able to use their passports to travel with impunity, to be treated with respect.

In this repressive age of the “war on terror”, this is nothing to be sneezed at. Australia does not want its passports’ unreliability leading to its citizens being harassed as suspect terrorists.

If Mossad can go around fraudulently producing passports using Australian identities, then Australian travellers might be inconvenienced. For the Australian government this is a much more serious state of affairs than the deaths of a few Palestinians.

Rewind here – if it is widely known that Mossad can go around forging identity documents using Australian passports, then Australia’s place in the world is undermined. It does not mean, as a headline in the Electronic Intifada – a usually fantastic source of information on Israel’s crimes and the struggle of the Palestinians – that Israel “is on the road to self-destruction”.

Why did Mossad have to botch their operation so badly that the Western media can have a field day publicising their activities – which in the usual scheme of things are accepted as perfectly legitimate?

That’s why Israeli officials are so dismissive of enquiries about this scandal in a tea cup. In fact, one of them laughed in journalists’ faces as he flung at them “you should all be celebrating; we eliminated one of Hamas’ top operatives”.

They are genuinely surprised at the kerfuffle.

And why wouldn’t they be? When their crimes against humanity, their genocide of the Palestinians, their killing of peaceful protesters, the building of their security wall destroying Palestinian communities in the process, the continuing occupation of Palestinian land by settlers, all of this and more is not just ignored, but cheered on!

The vilest atrocities are continually justified as Israel “defending” its vulnerable self, only armed as they are with nuclear weapons and all the modern means of killing that the US can pour into their hands.

So while Rudd and Smith probably are genuinely annoyed, we should not expect too many ripples from this affair. It does not mean, as one headline proclaimed on Electronic Intifada – a usually fantastic source of information on Israel’s crimes and the struggle of the Palestinians – that Israel “is on the road to self-destruction”.

When it comes down to it, Australia, determined to be heard and respected in the imperialist club, will continue to cheer on Israel’s real crimes no matter how annoyed they are or how much they huff and puff about this stuff up.

At least they’ll expect Mossad to lift its game and carry out their illegal assassinations without discrediting the standing of friendly states’ identity documentation.

This article, by Sandra Bloodworth, first appeared in Socialist Alternative.