007? Is that you?

A couple of weeks ago, a Hamas activist, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was murdered in Dubai. Ah, I thought, the Israelis are up to their old tricks again - stringing out peace talks while assassinating their opposition. It was just one of those events which won't hit the front pages, because at least in the West, Israel can do what it likes. See also: Israel's nuclear bomb.

The story was on the news again last night - the assassins were all travelling under UK, Irish, French and (ironically) German passports. Either the governments of these countries tacitly allow this to happen, or passports aren't as secure as our leaders lead us to believe.

The story's got a real 70s ring about it - assassinations, fake identities, dark deeds in backward places. It isn't the behaviour of a modern and civilised country: it's the behaviour of a 1970s South American dictatorship, or the British state in Northern Ireland. It also displays Israel's total contempt for Arab nations: sending in hit squads and assuming that no investigation will follow.

Israel is closely allied with the UK, and is a puppet state of the US. We mustn't fall into the trap of imposing certain values on some states, while permitting our friends to behave as they like. Write to your foreign affairs ministers and demand an investigation.