What's wrong with this Canada - Mossad story?

This story originated with the Sun chain in Canada and is now turning up in Israeli media. It's got all the elements of a good spy thriller; assassination, secret identities, false passports, and, wouldn't you know it, a shady Iranian right in the middle of it.

The way the story is presented is obvious hokum. The Mossad agent in question is hiding out in Canada after the assassination of Hamas big Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai back in 2010. Hiding out from what? Hamas hit teams roaming Haifa and Tel Aviv looking for revenge?

That's beyond silly. That's even sillier than the original assassination plot which involved a team of no less than 26 killers! That's what I call overkill! And while they did get their man, they also got most of their team ID'd by Dubai security. Oops!

But just because our Mossad chappie has no need to be hiding out in Canada doesn't mean the accommodating folks in Harper's Ottawa didn't fix him up with a new Canadian identity. In 1997 Israel admitted to using fake Canadian passports in a botched assassination attempt in Jordan and promised not to be so naughty again.

With the current PM of Canada and most of his cabinet having sworn eternal love for Netanyahu, they won't have to. They can pick up real passports at the nearest Canadian consulate. The Canadians are only doing God's will; right there in the Book of Revelations it says "and the Canadianites shall shelterest them from the anti-semites with papers bearing the Seal of Stephen", a clear reference to Canadian passports.

As for the Iranian Don Juan charming state secrets out of a lonely gal at the passport office, that's a nice touch too. Gives the story a human element.

Globe and Mail antisemitism?

This quote from Peter Jones' courageous op-ed in today's Globe caught my eye;

The (US) administration needs friends and allies who will quietly roll up their sleeves and look for answers. What it gets from Canada is bluster and intransigence, as the Conservatives hew to the dictates of the Israeli right in hopes of securing votes in Canada.

That's as close as any opinion content in the Globe has ever come to admitting that Canada's Middle East policy is dictated by the Likudniks in Jerusalem. Not too long ago FM Baird accused Richard Falk of antisemitism for saying half as much.

Where I think Professor Jones' analysis needs a little clarification is in the claim that the Harper gang's policy vis-a-vis Israel is about vote pandering. It is, but we're not talking about the Jewish vote. We're talking about the Harper base of extreme fundamentalist end-times aficionados; the folks who have been reading the Book of Revelations to find out what's going to happen next year.

Those are the Canadian voters who support Likud policies. Which is not to say Likud and the settlement project have no support among Canadian Jews, but certainly not enough to make "vote-pandering" worthwhile.