nOmadic_frOg wrote:Sooo no problem with the leaping tall buildings in a single bound part ahahahhahaha

Cousin Willy can do that shit in his sleep, bro.

nOmadic_frOg wrote:

spiderweb wrote:So what is the big deal, spies or not?
You think NZ SAS doesn't do the same in foreign lands, and likewise the british and yanks...more fool you.

I hear the NZSAS can leap tall buildings in a single bound, so probably.

they'd kick your pasty spotty little arse.

I'm just saying.

happybaboon wrote:

spiderweb wrote:So what is the big deal, spies or not?
You think NZ SAS doesn't do the same in foreign lands, and likewise the british and yanks...more fool you.

Err, yeah, I very much doubt that NZ attempts to steal passports from our supposed allies/friends

That's just not how we roll.

No, we let Uncle Obama run his eavesdropping network on our front lawn.
And he throws us a bone now and then.

Henry Dorset Case wrote:

nOmadic_frOg wrote:

spiderweb wrote:So what is the big deal, spies or not?
You think NZ SAS doesn't do the same in foreign lands, and likewise the british and yanks...more fool you.

I hear the NZSAS can leap tall buildings in a single bound, so probably.

they'd kick your pasty spotty little arse.

I'm just saying.

Not quite as impressive as leaping tall buildings in a single bound

I'm just saying.

Why would they bother coming here to get a passport when they can forge them so well at home? My guess is it was just some random backpacker being cheap, rude and annoying - as Israeli backpackers tend to be - when karma intervened to smite the bastard for camping in all those doc sites without paying.

j2hyde wrote:Why would they bother coming here to get a passport when they can forge them so well at home? My guess is it was just some random backpacker being cheap, rude and annoying - as Israeli backpackers tend to be - when karma intervened to smite the bastard for camping in all those doc sites without paying.

with an aweful lot of "collateral damage" by karma

j2hyde wrote:Why would they bother coming here to get a passport when they can forge them so well at home? ...

A fake physical passport is of limited use these days since in many cases passsenger lists are forwarded to the intelligence services of the destination country. There was a big fuss about this a while back when various European countries realised that the personal info required to be forwarded to the USA in this regard would breach their privacy laws. I can't remember the outcome, I think the Euro's decided to quietly change their laws to make an exception or fudge it somehow. Anyway spooks need the use of real IDs, not fake documents.

The concerns about whether the medical team included folks wanting to hack the Police database are perfectly reasonable. Israel is one of the leaders in computer security and the creation of custom spying software. They are known to have engaged in extremely sophisticated industrial spying by this means, I recall they were caught at it in the early noughties.
Apart from wanting to keep their presumed passport harvesters safe Israel has various intelligence concerns in NZ so there is no reason why they wouldn't have the odd spy here.

Simonius_Titius wrote:Apart from wanting to keep their presumed passport harvesters safe Israel has various intelligence concerns in NZ so there is no reason why they wouldn't have the odd spy here.

What sort of intelligence concerns would Israel have with NZ? Aside from how they have seriously pissed a lot of us off by stealing identities off people with cerebral palsy I can't see how we are all that relevant to their situation. Especially considering the far more pressing concerns they have with dozens of countries which are right next door to them.

But then I guess they've got to spend all those trillions of dollars of US aid on something. Might as well spy on peaceloving nations half a world away.

We are one of the most politically neutral countries in the world, no direct enemies, tons of allies. If you wanted to hide someone, NZ would be the place to do it. Combined with our overly trusting and non-prying Kiwi characteristics and you've got the perfect hiding place for anyone.

happybaboon wrote:... What sort of intelligence concerns would Israel have with NZ? Aside from how they have seriously pissed a lot of us off by stealing identities off people with cerebral palsy I can't see how we are all that relevant to their situation. Especially considering the far more pressing concerns they have with dozens of countries which are right next door to them.

But then I guess they've got to spend all those trillions of dollars of US aid on something. Might as well spy on peaceloving nations half a world away.

A significant proportion of those zillions is recycled back to the US via the activities of AIPAC. That particular dynamic couldn't apply in NZ because we don't have the Jewish voter base, but the effectiveness of AIPAC re aid and UN voting behaviour must make Israel wonder if there is a way to do a little of the same in other countries.

The four who got quaked look too young to be spooks so the only feasible skulduggery would be passport acquisition.
The NZ Herald has dropped the "5 passports" claim, it now mentions just a perfectly reasonable European second passport.


There may be some work for Israeli spooks in NZ though:

Arabic people like to eat NZ lamb. Our business people go in and out of those countries, talk to influential people over there and would naturally pick up info of interest which could be extracted through casual conversation or a more formal arrangement.

More James Bondly, if Israel wants to put a person into e.g. Iran then a NZ business cover might be better than one from a country with a significant Jewish population.

In Chch we make encrypted radios that are very useful in thinly populated, mountainous country like many of Israel's enemies. Furthermore, an encrypted radio designed and manufactured in Christchurch may be "different" from a comms security point of view to one made in the USA or a NATO country.

Also in Chch we have Allied Telesyn who design internet routers incorporating banking-grade security - tasty stuff for spooks perhaps.

Then you have Rakon who make oscillators tough enough to be blasted into space and back, or maybe even from a cannon, I dunno. Anyway I guess Israel would be interested to know who was buying those, or maybe to learn a bit more about how they are designed. Israel is a weapons producer itself so it is interested in such things. And it is not officially a nuclear state so there are things it is not allowed to buy openly.

Oscmar make and have sold to Israel shoot-to-kill training systems which I bet Israel would love to have the source code for. source: http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/nw170205.htm

MAS Zengrange (formerly Marine Air Systems) make battlefield communications and control electronics. While looking to see if they still exist I came across this 2005 list of NZ military manufacturers: http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/nw011005.htm

And then theres the usual - which way will we vote at the UN and whether that can be swung; the activities of activists within our small Muslim population and their visitors etc.

What I get from all this is that there is a bunch of sloppy reporting going on, it is hard to tell what else.

Israel has a highly respected civilian volunteer rescue organisation ZAKA which has often sent teams to assist other countries during disasters.
ZAKA is accredited by the UN, as I guess is IDF (Israeli Defense Force). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZAKA#International_rescue_and_recovery_operations
http://www.zaka.us/

Magnus, the private SAR company which was denied access is headed by an ex military man. He was a career army man, a paratrooper specialising in Special Operations. Later he worked in intelligence, according to the company website. He brought an 11-person team to Chch, paid for by the parents of another two backpackers who were later found dead.

The Magnus team never went into the red zone:"[The prime minister] is wrong, he is totally wrong," Magnus Search and Rescue operational manager Hilik Magnus said. "We have never been in and we have never been sent out."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5323420/Israeli-backpackers-questioned-in-Wellington

The Magnus SAR team did go in to the red zone. There was only one SAR team:
Mr Magnus disputed a report that an unauthorised Israeli search and rescue team was confronted by armed officers and removed from inside the sealed-off red zone. There was only one rescue team and it was allowed inside the red zone to accompany police to retrieve backpacks belonging to Mr Levy and Mr Ingel, he said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5317400/We-went-in-to-recover-backpacks-Israel-rescue-team

There were two Israeli SAR teams:To questions about the two urban search and rescue teams from Israel that had arrived in Christchurch and were refused permission to enter the earthquake red zone to help the search, Mr Tzur said they had been sent by the parents of the two Israeli backpackers who also died in the quake.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5311497/Quake-victims-no-Mossad-agents

John Key says none not neither:
He stressed that none of the passports found in the name of Ofer Mizrahi, the Israeli who was killed during the devastating quake, were New Zealand passports
But before fleeing, the group returned the man's Israeli passport to the Israeli ambassador, leaving a second passport, a European one, with their comrade's body.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5317229/Israeli-spy-story-won-t-die

The Israeli Embassy yesterday confirmed that Mr Mizrahi had only two passports - one Israeli, the other European - and they were both handed in to the embassy by his friends before they left New Zealand.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10740098

The Prime Minister said Mr Mizrahi was found with two passports – one Israeli and one of European origin. This is in contrast to the Southland Times story which said the man had five passports.

“The other three people who had been in the van took their own passports with them when they left the country” said Mr Key.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Key-confirms-SIS-investigated-Israeli-spies/tabid/419/articleID/219445/Default.aspx

Two is "more than one", but normally one just says "two" if that is what is meant. John Key and the Israeli ambassador from Canberra both described the number of passports as "more than one"

The Southland Times journalist who kicked this all off has affirmed that his source is involved in ongoing investigations into various Israelis in Chch, and sticks with the 5 passports version.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/opinion/5317513/Yes-but-I-still-back-sources-on-Israelis

Heres a NZ intelligence expert commenting on the affair:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10739676

An ex Mossad chap explains what Mossad might want from NZ:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3562376

WRT to the rescue teams I ghave no idea
wrt to the guy who died in the van I have no idea (except i was first on the scene and was only able to ascertain that he was present after being advised by his friends that there was actually a person in the sverely crushed vehicle)

wrt to his friends, their bahaviour was extremely inconsistent with hardened intelligence operatives and more consistent with terrrified young tourists who've just seen one of their friend killed and were having severe difficulty dealing with it.

If they were spooks, I'm the duchess of york

great uncle bulgaria wrote:If they were spooks, I'm the duchess of york

That agrees with everything I've read about or by them. They were real people under their own identities, backpacking around. Not old enough to be spooks themselves, though Mizrahi might have been a helper.

So what it all boils down to could be that the initial journalist had a dodgy source who mistook "five passports between them" to mean "five passports on Mizrahi", and after that it was just coincidences, horribly sloppy reporting, and justifiable suspicion because they are Israelis.