26 Mar, 2013

More revelations of Australian-Israeli spy make a mockery of global border controls

Imtiaz Muqbil

Additional investigative reporting by leading Australian and German newspapers have unearthed new details about what led to the suicide-death of Australian-Israeli spy Ben Zygier and further highlighted the security threat posed by potentially hundreds of Israeli dual-passport holders worldwide.

Details of the months-long investigation initiated by Fairfax Media, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, and completed by a team of reporters assembled by Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine were published on March 25. The reports go into copious detail about how Zygier’s Australian passport gave him free access to countries where Israelis are normally denied entry, such as Syria, Iran and the UAE.

Says the report, “For an agency like Mossad, which depends on its ability to send its agents unsuspected behind enemy lines, foreign-born nationals like Zygier offer an inherently valuable bonus – access to a genuine foreign passport that bears no connection to Israel.”

The report is an investigation into the circumstances that led to Zygier’s suicide in December 2010 in a high-security Israeli prison which was originally built to incarcerate Yigal Amir, the Jewish right-wing fanatic who assassinated former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It describes Zygier as an equally committed Zionist, willing to do anything to defend Israel.

The two investigative reports can be read by clicking here and here.

According to the report, “One chief executive of a mid-sized European company with extensive business interests across the Middle East and Persian Gulf – including Iran – confirmed that he had hired Zygier for an accounting position.

“When confronted with the news that Zygier was actually a full-time employee of Mossad, the CEO said he had struggled to process the news that his company – a legitimate concern that he had built largely on his own – would have been targeted by Israeli intelligence.”

The report says that in October, 2009, Fairfax Media had received a tip from an Australian source about three dual Australian-Israeli citizens who were suspected of working on behalf of Israeli intelligence, using their Australian identities as cover. “One of the names was that of Ben Zygier, but when Fairfax Media confronted Zygier with the allegations during December 2009 and January 2010, Zygier vociferously denied any such thing, dismissing the information as fanciful.”

The report poses serious questions about what security agencies worldwide, especially in the Arab, Islamic and Asian countries, are doing to keep an eye on Israeli intelligence and its recruitment of Zionist Jews holding a variety of European, U.S., Canadian and Australian passports to promote their cause.

While many of these countries demand copious information from citizens of Arab, Islamic and Asian countries for a simple visa application, their citizens can walk into those countries visa-free. As the report points out, if they hold Israeli passports, they are of immense value to the Israeli intelligence agencies.

Israelis holding European, U.S., Canadian and Australian passports are widely known to be active in a broad range of sectors promoting Israeli interests and policies. Key target areas of influence are security, education, media, advertising and finance. Many are also known to be working in the travel industry, especially in the Middle East as well as countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. They also seek to influence political and economic policies through a variety of “think-tanks”, research and consultancy companies.

Further whistleblowing and exposure about the extent to which these dual passport holding spies have penetrated Arab, Islamic and Asian countries will become a major source of embarrassment for their security agencies and raise questions about what they are doing to track down Israeli spies alongside the usual gang of suspects in the “war on terror.”

Indeed, the dual passport system makes a mockery of global visa regimes and whatever few border controls exist. If security is truly a concern, its control mechanisms should be applied uniformly, and security agencies should have the means of establishing whether visitors to their countries hold citizenships of other countries.

By presenting themselves as the “good guys” in the so-called “war on terror”, Israelis have gained extensive access to the intelligence and security apparatus of many countries. This aids and abets their dual-passport agents who are free to travel across borders, carrying out assassinations and other attacks, in total disdain of national laws.

On the other hand, Muslims, Arabs and people mistaken to be of Arab/Muslim origin are routinely harassed, questioned, racially profiled and singled out for “special treatment” at international border and security checkpoints.

The Australians sought to keep a lid on the death of the Mossad spy because they knew the Pandora’s box it would open up. Gutsy investigating by the Australian and German media, especially that not under the control of Rupert Murdoch, has changed the game. That’s what a free and independent press is supposed to do. At least some sections of the media have stepped in where the once formidable U.S. media left off.

Whistleblowers are also set to have a field day, if they are aware of dual-passport holding Israelis working to undermine the Arab/Islamic countries, which is their primary goal.