Habib Toumi

Micheal Martin - Irish Central

An Israeli PR exercise to fix its relations with Ireland following the Dubai assassination passport fiasco “may be too little too late”, an Irish paper has said.

Tel Aviv has come under tremendous pressure from Ireland after Mossad agents used forged Irish passports to enter Dubai and kill a senior Hamas commander in a hotel room on January 19.

In an OpEd published by the New York Times on Thursday, Zion Evrony, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, remarkably departed from the former tactics of ignoring Northern Ireland’s peace process as a possible source of lessons for the Middle East conflict.

“First and foremost, there is the concept that to resolve a difficult conflict, each side, while retaining its “dream” — its maximum aspiration — must be willing to forego its implementation in practice. Painful compromises were made by both sides in the Good Friday Agreement, without which no deal would have been possible,” he wrote, marking a major change from years of Israeli claims that “there were few if any lessons to be learned for the Middle East from Northern Ireland’s peace process.” continue reading…

David Miliband - Daily Mail

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has demanded Israel’s full cooperation in investigating the fraudulent use of British passports by the killers of a Hamas leader in Dubai last month, describing their misuse as an “outrage”.

“What the Permanent Secretary made clear is that we wanted Israel to co-operate fully with the investigation (that has been launched by Gordon Brown and is being undertaken by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency), and to send back to his government the seriousness with which we are addressing this situation,” said Miliband, according to the Times. “There has obviously been a very serious incident involving British passports and British passport holders who woke up yesterday morning extremely worried.”

He said he hoped to discuss the issue further with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman when both men were in Brussels on Monday, according to a report in Israeli daily Haaretz.

Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, met Ricketts on Thursday after London summoned him to clarify what it called an “identity theft” in which the passports of six British Israelis were used by assassins.

As he left Whitehall, Prosor said that he had been “invited” to the meeting, stressing that he had not been “summoned” in a clear signal that there was no diplomatic dressing down.

However, Prosor said that while he was “happy to cooperate with Sir Peter’s request”, he was “unable to shed any further light on the events.” continue reading…

Al Mabhouh - Mystery asassination - Gulf News

Members of a hit squad who killed a Hamas leader used Irish passports to enter and leave Dubai, the Irish Herald has reported.

Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, 50, was found dead in mysterious circumstances on January 20 in a Dubai hotel room.

But, according to the newspaper report quoting police authorities, up to seven people, including at least one woman, were said to have been involved in the killing.

Four of the assassins used Irish documents to enter Dubai and later fled to a “European country” after the killing.

“We are aware of the media reports and we are in contact with authorities locally to try and determine the truth of the reports,” a spokesman for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs told the Herald on Friday.

Hamas has blamed Israel for the killing, but Israeli news media claimed Al Mabhouh had many enemies and could have been killed by other Arab factions. continue reading…