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Kalius
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Kriegsgewitter
Aug 2002
time: 16:34
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quote:
The government is suspending all diplomatic ties with Israel after two of its citizens were sentenced to six months jail for passport fraud.
Eli Cara and Urie Kelman, who are suspected of being Israeli spies, pleaded guilty last month to trying to obtain false New Zealand passports.
Helen Clark has described the case as a serious attempt to undermine the New Zealand passport system.
"We regard it as an unfriendly action by agents of the government of Israel aimed at undermining New Zealand's sovereignty and certainly breaching international law," says Clark.
She says three months ago the New Zealand government asked the Israeli government for an explanation and an apology, but they have received neither.
Clark says from Thursday the New Zealand government is suspending all high level visits and exchanges with Israel, and that any Israeli officials wanting to come to New Zealand will have to get visas.
She says the government we will not be rapidly agreeing to the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador, will put constraints on official dealings with Israeli honorary consuls, and will not be accepting the Israeli approach to have its president visit New Zealand in August.
"We are taking a very dim view of this and we look forward at some point to the Israeli government swallowing its pride and offering the explanation and apology we've asked for."
Kelman, 31, and Cara, 50, captured international attention when it was revealed they could have links to the Israeli secret service, Mossad.
On Thursday Justice Potter imposed the six month terms and ordered the pair to each pay $50,000 reparation to the Cerebral Palsy Society. The man whose identity they used to obtain a passport has cerebral palsy.
The pair made multiple visits to New Zealand over the past nine months in the attempt to obtain a New Zealand passport.
They were working with two others when they were caught.
A passport officer became suspicious that Cara's foreign accent didn't match the anglo-saxon name on the application.
David Philp of the Department of Internal Affairs says the case shows their systems are effective, and has again highlighted the international value of a New Zealand passport.
Police followed the passport's delivery through central Auckland. It led them to Cara, who was waiting for its arrival at a nearby cafe.
After arresting Cara police went with the package to where Kelman was waiting. He was caught throwing away his phone, which was used in a series of calls to Cara.
Political experts believe Israeli spy agency Mossad has spread its operations further afield into the South Pacific to keep pace with global terrorism.
It is known that Cara's Israeli home is in a wealthy neighbourhood popular with intelligence personnel.
Israeli TV intelligence correspondent Ben David says if they are Mossad agents then the case is very embarrassing for Israel.
"They'll learn from this exercise. They'll try to work out a different way of approaching things in the future," he says. |
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_nationa...351?format=html
Israel is also miffed that the story is getting so much media coverage. When Mossad spies operated in the US and Canada it was generally swept under the carpet by Canadian and US governments. Not here, obviously.
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mrmitchell
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Hasn't Israel and Ntotally Zawesome had issues before? Specifically over Mossad, IIRC?
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Pekka
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em seu burro dos pais!
Feb 2002
time: 07:34
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Kuciwalker, not trying to speculate why this would happen, but NZ passport is always good. If you want to operate on some country, NZ passport would be good if you need fake ID. The part that's weird is that why wouldn't Israeli intelligence just do the passports. I guess the reason is they wanted 'real' passports, as if you get checked out and contacted to NZ, with a real passport there is no problem. Just think if you had fake passport, be it very authentic looking, it still wouldn't match with the NZ officials. But when you have real passport, then it checks out, then you have someone elses identity and that could come handy depending what you want to do.
Were these people agents or not, that I don't know. But real passports are better than fakes, even if the fake ones look very authentic.
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:34
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I should clarify a couple of things.
First although PM Clark has said there are strong indications of links to Mossad, there are not proven links (but then could you prove it, unless they cooperated?  ).
Second is the reason such a reaction was felt deserved. What these two ( three, four, however many there) were doing is trying to fraudulently obtain an NZ passport. NZ is known internationally as a staunch UN-supporter and our passports give us a certain degree of protection due to our governments' stances on a variety of issues where eg Americans, Brits, Australians or, say, Israelis, might not be treated so leniently. If it was found that NZ passports could be acquired by those who were not eligible, or worse, by agents for another power, then that instantly means a degradation of the reputation of our passports, and the possible endangerment of Kiwis abroad. It is the NZ government's duty to defend NZ's citizens and the country's reputation, and this would have been one of the worst offences against that for some time.
What makes it worse is that these guys were trying to get a passport using the name of a wheel-chair bound NZer suffering frm Bell's Palsy syndrome, who was unable to stop them from what they were doing. B*astards. 
Also, take note that when these guys were caught three months ago, the NZ government contacted the Israeli government for an explanation and/or apology. There has been no such communication, thus leading to today's decision.
At first I thought Helen's actions were a bit harsh, but having thought about it a little, and having heard that there was no proper response from the Israeli government, I think they are justified. Hopefully this will be cleared up soon, but it should be noted that no-one f***s with our reputation.
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Cruddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Azazel
This is really weird on part of you guys. Israel has always took responsibility when our agents were caught in other places. Think Jordan, Think Switzerland, Think Cyprus. If agents were captured, we always acknowledeged that they were our agents. |
Using that logic, ie they are not working for the Israeli govt, then they are terrorists and belong in camp X-ray.
quote:
Originally posted by Azazel
Keep whining about Israel . |
If we didn't, how much more arrogant would the Israeli govt be?
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15-07-2004 12:22
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