THE BRITISH government is so far seeking to avoid a full-scale split with Israel, despite allegations that Mossad intelligence agents used British passports during the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai last month.
Speaking on BBC yesterday, foreign secretary David Miliband said “any interference with British passports is an outrage” and demanded Israeli co-operation with a British investigation.
However, the diplomatic flames are being carefully controlled. The Israeli ambassador was “invited” to the Foreign Office yesterday for a 20-minute meeting, rather than being “summoned”.
British-Israeli ties are strained after a UK court issued an arrest warrant – later reversed – for Israel’s opposition leader Tzipi Livni.
Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor spent 20 minutes with the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, Peter Ricketts, who said he “hoped [for] and expected” Israel’s co-operation.
The foreign secretary said Mr Ricketts had “made clear that we wanted to give Israel every opportunity to share with us what it knows about this incident. We think it’s right to make clear to Israel that we want them to co-operate with that inquiry. That is not going through the motions, that is the rightful business of government.”
On Wednesday, the foreign office said the meeting between Mr Ricketts and Mr Prosor was taking place “given the links to Israel of a number the British nationals affected”. Now, however, Israel must decide how much co-operation it can offer to head off a diplomatic crisis.
The six British passports that were “cloned” by those involved in the killing of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh were years old and not fitted with the latest microchip technology, said Mr Miliband.
Conservative Party leader David Cameron said “at the very least we need some assurances about the future to make sure that whatever has happened in the past this can’t happen again, and I would expect the government to ask some pretty tough questions”.
Future promises of good behaviour by the Israelis – assuming that Mossad’s involvement is ever proven – will be worth little, however, given that Israel promised in 1987 not to use British passports after eight British passports believed to destined for use by Mossad agents were found in a bag in a German telephone booth.