Considering that Hamas militant leaders plan and execute bombings and mass murders in Israel and are given explicit support by the other Arab countries (5 star hotel in Dubai) the chances of bringing him to justice using legal methods are not available.

The outrage is that passports were forged. The lack of concern for the dead Hamas commander is palpable.

The preferred method of justice is legal process. If that route is not possible, then justice is served by predator or hit squad. If mass killers cannot rest or hide, then the world can only be a better place.

I agree with CJ on when assassination is "ok"- and even then I would probably only be okay with it if the person were head of an unlawful militant group. But as a national head it becomes a LOT more complex.

Also, I'm not exactly thrilled about the notions of justice that we HAVE to make sure the person behind whatever enemy campaign needs to be 'brought to trial' while a soldier simply doing his job isn't so worthy of 'justice'. If they're supposed to be 'fair game' so is the guy actually calling the shots- and I'd rather he were picked off by a sniper or drone than a horde of guys mowed down just to ensure the actual "bad guy" can be restrained and put in chains.

And Pelican- I absolutely agree that this SHOULD be the issue, and I'm really actually surprised and appalled at how little response your point is getting.
Implying our country in an assassination attempt on a third nation's soil is bad enough, but you say they've actually used identity theft? For either of these we aught to actually consider publically declaring ourselves neutral at the very least (only because voicing outright opposition to Israel tends to encourage too many jihad nutcases to move to our country).

Dear Graham,

I'm not going to go into the history of Israel,
and the Israeli settlement in Palestine.
As Antony Loewenstein tells us - in his
book, "My Israel Question," :

"Palestinians have become "unpeople"... Israelis
are important but they are not. This narrative has
been constructed through a complex set of media, politics, and lobbying, and has resulted in a skewed perspective ..."
In short - Israelis can get away with murder and seen to be
just.

If the Israeli Government and its agents had the
decency and responsibility of admitting to the
assassination instead of denying it and if they
had undertaken that assassination in their own
name instead of stealing the identities of foreign
nationals thus exposing these nationals to revenge
attacks from terrorist sources the world might
understand their actions.

However, everything to date reaks of activities
by a criminal organisation which in Western countries
would be tried for extreme criminal activities.

This is not the first time Israel has been accused
of such activity and according to International Law
this act should be dealt with at the highest level of
the International Court of Justice. Had this been an
assassination of an Israeli operative - the ripples
around the world would have turned into a major storm.

It appears that the activities of other so called rogue
states are not tolerated by Western Governments and yet
Israel has never been called upon to account for its
actions.

It's time they did!

KH, Pelican, others

The substance of this and my other comments on "Israel" is/was threefold fold .
- the first that extra judicial murder and in a third state is unacceptable.

- consequent illegal actions to support that are also unacceptable i.e. state sponsored fraud including forging passports, false statements to customs, and goodness know what other crimes needed to mount such an attack. I wonder if the US isn't burning the wire to TelAviv about the state sponsored bank fraud. Was it randomly selected or....?

- the possible consequences in/to those implicated countries like UK, Ireland, Germany, France and Australia etc.

To this latter point it is not beyond the realms of possibility that as a secondary goal was wedge politics. Making harder for said countries to deal with the Arab nations by heightening the suspicion of their fearful population. In that way moving the west to close ranks against the Arab lobby.

Neither is it totally fanciful for Mossad and therefore, Israel, to be hoping for a ground swell of PR sympathy, for the them against the evil killers. Knowing full well, that emotion tops rational thinking in the public arena. i.e. to accept the hit was righteous, one has to accept the Israeli perspective first.

Israeli nationalist, zealots and those who expect to gain [settlers etc], have in the past and continue to use international sympathy to excuse the otherwise inexcusable.
Take the Norway incident in the murder of the wrong Palestinian. Have any of the guilty ever been jailed. Read their PR of the time.

Consider for a moment the difference in world response to 9/11 and the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli client militia in Lebanon.
The current PM still refused to acknowledge their (his) mistakes/culpability in the incident.

One wonders if a Lebanese hit squad using the same logic executed the current Israeli PM for his alleged involvement. Would Israel the world shrug and say fair cop? I doubt it.

Someone has to draw the line somewhere. I propose respecting national sovereignty and all that it implies, state sponsored murder forged passports included)

Obama has recently raised the prospect of assassination for those whom the Govt defines as illegal combatants.

The CIA for decades has been doing this along with many other Govts.Obama just wanted to legalise it.

Assassination is the least of our worries.Israel wants to invade Iran probably with the use of nuclear weapons.The USA is trying to limit China's rise by cutting off it's energy supplies.This is the very same reason why Japan entered WW2.

Just speaking to a friend recently who visited the USA.She said it
was a eary feeling of people worried about Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs from Iran that could wipe out communications and power.This again is scare mongering by the US Govt.People in the USA are stock piling food and amunitions.

If we all want to stop this nonsense,then we'd better realise that HAMAS and Al Queda are not the only lunatics on the block.

We are involved in illegal wars in Iraq,Afghanistan and Pakistan under the pretext of stopping terrorism.These wars are all about taking energy and reoursces and there are no good guys.

Yeah, this just CAN'T help but turn into a Israel debate/bashing sesh.

I think the general rule regarding assassination is that it needs to create a positive outcome for your side. The problem is - I think - that the equation regarding positive outcome is SO nuanced that we just don't do it, plus, we don't have the enemy of the degree Israel does. We couldn't hope to understand and comprehend the situation there.

The difference between us and Israel is that they are in a permanent state of war. Who, really, is a direct threat to us?. In conflicts like the one Israel is permanently in - don't tell they're not when their soldiers die most days - is that taking out one gun runner/scumbag fertiliser may set the enemy's cause back months. Yeah, more than likely he'll be replaced but if they took out the guy they also took out his means, experience, and contacts. How many Israeli lives do you think they saved by knocking this clown over?.

...and really, who cares?. Just another dead scumbag. At least he's serving a purpose as fertiliser now.