This is a question that flares up every few years. It's flaring up again. The London Sunday Times claimed this week that the use of foreign passports is in fact an ongoing policy in the Israeli secret service.
But I don't think they're still using Canadian passports, and here's why.
When Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird did his tour of Israel last week, personal ultra-orthodox Rabbi in tow, he made such an embarrassing spectacle of himself that frankly, Canadian passports just attract too much attention.
When Canada's Foreign Minister repeats dozens of times on one trip the mantra that "Israel has no better friend in the world than Canada", well, there's quite a lot of places where they're going to raise eyebrows when they see a Canadian passport.
Our passports were much more useful back when we were a quiet supporter of Israel. A Canadian passport got you into and out of a lot of nasty places because we were seen as a more or less neutral entity. Sure, we're pretty much limited in how far we can deviate from the path set out for us by our big neighbor to the south, but right back to the Pearson era there was a strain of independent thinking in Canadian foreign policy.
A few years ago that would have made a Canadian passport a useful tool for Mossad.
With the ascent of the Harperites and the slavish pro-Likud turn that Canadian foreign policy has taken, Mossad agents will attract less attention using Israeli passports.
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