Passport to danger in wake of murder in Dubai

Date Published: {J}

Debate still rages over who used false Irish passports in the killing of a leading Hamas figure. Israel denies that it was their security service, Mossad. It might after all have been any one of a number of highly organised agencies that go around assassinating leaders of terrorist organisations sworn to destroy Israel. Honestly, there could be dozens.

It was Mossad. It’s funny though, I’m not having a lot of trouble with this. Not the passport thing certainly, but not even the assassination itself. It’s always been frowned upon in warfare to skip over the intermediaries and just attack each other’s leaders.

After all that sort of approach can only lead to redundancies in the military. The principals are somehow above all the actual suffering, maiming and dying stuff. This clearly goes right back to the days of kings, when you got to be leader mainly by dint of being the most violent person around. So proper etiquette now is to first wipe out vast numbers of your opponent’s troops – and probably a decent proportion of their unarmed population too.

Only after this formal procedure are you officially allowed a go at their leadership. And even still you’re only meant to capture the leaders, give them a fair trial, and then kill them. That doesn’t seem right. If anybody deserves a trial before being killed it’s surely the troops and the civilians, not the people who were, beyond any reasonable doubt, giving orders.

So I can’t feel much sorrow for Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, leader of an organisation that uses suicide attacks against civilians, assassinated in a 5-star hotel room. Really, sod him. By any measure this was a better way to counter Hamas than the 1,400 casualties caused by Israel’s attack on Gaza just over a year ago. All wars should be fought like this. More kings, fewer pawns. Let the Israeli cabinet occupy the occupied territories by themselves. Other Hamas leaders could deliver their own suicide bombs.

Yes, we should complain in no uncertain terms to the Israeli ambassador about using our passports. Forging a country’s documents is, at the very least, rude. And a dumb move on their part anyway. Israel didn’t exactly enjoy widespread support in this country beforehand. Now its opponents can claim that it has endangered them personally. But does this really pose a danger to Irish travellers? I don’t think so. It might – just possibly –lead to occasional delays, but no one’s going to get arrested or shot as a precautionary measure just because they’re travelling with on Irish passport.

Probably.

To be honest . . . I think it’s kind of cool. The Irish passport hasn’t been widely considered a sign of international danger and intrigue for some years now – no doubt one reason why Mossad chose them. But this gives it renewed cachet. Next time I go through border controls, especially if I happen to be in or near the Middle East, I’ll know that for at least a moment they’re going to be wondering "Irish Citizen – or undercover assassin?"

I’m going to practise that one-eyebrow thing.