NAZARETH, ISRAEL // Israel chose to “lie low” yesterday in
response to Britain’s decision to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of
forged passports in the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, though senior
officials were reported to be seething in private.
According to the Israeli media, the foreign ministry was
surprised by the British move against its embassy official, widely believed to
be the London station chief for Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Israeli officials
noted the gravity of the decision: no Israeli diplomat has been expelled from a
western country in more than two decades.
Israel was given prior warning and the diplomat flew out of
London on Monday, 20 hours before David Miliband, the British foreign minister,
announced the expulsion.
Israeli officials were reported to regard the diplomatic rebuff
as essentially a face-saving exercise by a British government concerned by
political considerations as it faces an imminent general election.
Yedioth Aharonoth, Israel’s most popular
daily, reported yesterday that Israel had agreed not to retaliate with an
expulsion of its own and was expecting “soon” to send a replacement intelligence
officer to London.
There were, however, concerns that Britain might limit its
intelligence-sharing with Israel as a result of the incident.
The Mossad is widely believed to have been behind the killing of
Mahmoud al Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room in January after a large number of the
identities used by the alleged 27 members of the hit squad were traced to
Israeli dual nationals.
Twelve British passports were used in the operation.
An investigation by Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency
established no direct links between the London Mossad chief and the cloning of
the dozen UK passports allegedly used by the assassins.
“All the cloning work seems to have been done in Israel as far as
the UK passports were concerned,” said a source in London yesterday. Testimonies
from the British-Israeli nationals suggested that their passports were copied as
they passed through customs at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, or handed over
their documents to airline officials.
Israel had in place arrangements to ensure the operation would
not be jeopardised. Shortly beforehand, officials called the Israeli citizens
whose identities were to be stolen purporting to be arranging appointments on
immigration issues while in fact checking that they had no imminent travel
plans.
Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign
minister, expressed “regret” at the British government’s decision on Tuesday,
but added that Britain had yet to provide “proof that Israel was involved in
this affair”.
In announcing the expulsion, Mr Miliband said there were
“compelling reasons” to believe Israel was behind the cloned passports. That
echoed the findings of Dubai Police, who said their investigations had left them
“99 per cent certain” that the assassination was a Mossad operation.
Investigations in the other countries whose passports were used
in Dubai – Ireland, France, Germany and Australia – were continuing yesterday,
though there was no sign of a rush to follow Britain’s lead in expelling Israeli
diplomats.
In the first official reaction in Dubai, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan, the
police chief, said during a lecture at the Dubai Judicial Institute that the
expulsion was an inevitable legal step “when a country finds that a diplomat has
committed a crime”.
He did not say whether there had been co-operation between Dubai
Police and British detectives regarding the expulsion or whether the two had
shared other information.
The decision by the Israeli government not to vehemently protest
Britain’s decision appeared to partly reflect concerns about damage to future
intelligence-sharing.
Eli Carmon, a senior research scholar at the International
Institute for Counter-Terrorism near Tel Aviv, said: “The expulsion will
certainly affect the intelligence dialogue between the two countries. If Israel
learns of important information, it will be harder to share it now.”
But the low-key approach taken by the government was not shared
by some right-wing Israeli legislators. Arieh Eldad, of the National Union
party, accused Britain of “behaving hypocritically” given its own involvement in
the Middle East. He added: “I don’t want to offend dogs on this issue, since
some dogs are utterly loyal. Who are they to judge us on the war on terror?”
Another, Michael Ben-Ari, called Britain “loyal to the
anti-Semitic establishment”.
Anger was vented too in private by senior officials, who told the
Jerusalem Post newspaper that they were “stunned” and “humiliated” by the
British response. “This is not the way for a real friend to act,” one said,
adding that the British intelligence services should “know how things work”.
But Amir Oren, a leading military affairs commentator for the
liberal Haaretz newspaper, sounded a more critical note, castigating Benjamin
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, for being “the one who did not check
things fully, did not weigh the risks and rewards, and eroded Israel’s
diplomatic standing around the world”.
He noted that Israel had broken a promise it made in 1986 not to
misuse British passports after a Mossad agent left a batch of eight passports in
a phone box in Germany. A year later Britain closed down Mossad’s offices in
London after a Palestinian double agent was discovered with an arms cache.
Zvi Stauber, a former Israeli ambassador
the Britain, said London had no interest in blowing up the affair but that “they
had to do something”.
Additional reporting from David Sapsted in London and Awad
Mustafa in Dubai.
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