Australia should be embarrassed at the exposure of its hypocrisy. The Daily Telegraph of Australia (behind a pay wall, but text available here) writes:

SEVEN years ago Australia expelled a Mossad agent and publicly cut ties with the intelligence agency as it admonished Israel for using forged Australian passports in its assassination plot of a Hamas military chief.

But in the murky world of intelligence, nothing is ever what it seems and yesterday the Australian Government hailed Israel’s intelligence network as heroes for making the initial tip off that led to the 11th hour thwarting of an alleged terror plot to bring down an Etihad flight from Sydney last year.

“I wish to thank the Israeli’s very much,” Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said.

“We did get intelligence advice from Israel and it meant that ASIO then reached out to other partners and with all of the information packaged together, it resulted in arrests.”

No doubt hundreds of lives were saved by that tip and what followed but the change of attitude toward Israeli intelligence was as much to do with those actions as it was the politics behind both the breakup and now the make-up.

The Telegraph goes on to write:

Australia has had a public love-hate relationship with Israel’s covert tactics particularly in this country but the spies of both nations including ASIO and ASIS and Mossad and the various Israeli military intelligence branches have remained very much cooperative and in synch and it was that unbroken relationship that prevented a mid-flight tragedy last year.

Our Australian correspondent John McMahon writes:

This supposed hate relationship is only endorsed and promulgated by the Leftist media and the Greens along with elements of the socialist Leftist Labor.

It is a very good thing for Australia (and the UAE) that this public condemnation and break of intelligence ties is phony, pure eyewash catering to the Jew haters and Islamophiles of the domestic Australian and global left. The airplane in question was an Airbus A 380, capable of carrying over 500 people.

Israel is accustomed to hypocritical governments publicly condemning the Jewish state for actions that remain without criticism when other states engage in them. Fortunately for hundreds of innocents aboard that particular flight last year, Israel is generous toward hypocrites.

Of course, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, currently in crisis mode over allegations of corruption, was happy to take some credit for good news:

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton appeared unsure himself as he was prompted to respond on live radio to reports out of Israel where the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) made the public revelation that was quickly backed in a public speech to US Jewish leaders in Jerusalem by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (snip)

It was also a reminder that Israel’s intelligence network is second to none and has long been working outside its own borders to help its friends and allies in troubling times as long as its own interests are not crossed.

The IDF revealed its secretive Military Intelligence Unit 8200 played a crucial role in preventing the midair attack on an Etihad flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi on July 15 last year.

Israel’s meta-strategy is to make itself an indispensable nation for the great powers. Intelligence assistance is but one element. Another is the flourishing of Israeli high technology innovation, providing essential benefits to the most powerful companies in the world. So, too, the stream of medical innovations flowing from Israel. And the newest element is Israel’s development of offshore gas fields, providing energy to Europe and replacing or at least supplementing expensive Russian supplies of natural gas.

When faced with hatred and double standards, Israel excels and makes itself too valuable to “wipe from the map” as Iran’s mullahs repeatedly threaten to do.