Following the assassination of a Hamas commander blamed on the Mossad, Israelis who also hold the passport of another country will be banned from entering the United Arab Emirates if identified as Jews, according to Dubai's police chief. Israeli nationals are currently not permitted to travel to the country, but Israeli citizens holding a passport of a third country can currently enter the country. "We will not allow those who hold Israeli passports into the UAE no matter what other passport they have," Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said.
"We knew Israelis from their accents, but when they used European passports to come here, we accepted that and we treated them as Europeans. But after this day, if they have dual citizenship, we will exert extreme caution.”
“We know how to recognize them,” Tamim explained, saying his officials would be on the lookout for "Jews" and would identify them by "physical features and the way they speak.''
Israelis have been admitted to the UAE in recent years for specific reasons, including sports competitions and a recent energy conference. The sanctions come as Dubai authorities insist that they were sure that Israel's Mossad carried out the assassination in a Dubai hotel room of a top Hamas official in January. The assassins used forged passports from five European countries to enter Dubai.
Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian delegation in Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, said Jewish leaders in Australia had to decide whether their loyalties lay with Australia or Israel. “I think the Jewish community [leaders] should be more constructive and behave as Australians and protect the integrity of Australian citizens,'' Abdullhadi said in an interview with the newspaper ‘The Australian’.
