It might not all be plain sailing for the ‘up to 200 young New Zealanders’ who will be able to spend one year on a working holiday in Israel following an agreement signed
by Murray McCully in Jerusalem
last night.
We now know that Israel frequently steals the passports of foreigners living in Israel, to use in political assassinations. There is no reason to believe they are not still targeting our travel documents, even though
two Mossad agents were jailed
for passport fraud here back in 2004. New Zealand passports give easy entry to most Middle Eastern countries.
My message to young Kiwis aspiring to a working holiday in Israel is: have a good time, but you might have trouble getting into any other country if you end up on a terrorist watchlist because Mossad has stolen your passport.
Today I will be submitting a written parliamentary question to Foreign Minister McCully asking him what assurances he asked for or received in Jerusalem that
Mossad would stop stealing our passports
.