MIDDLE EAST: Inept handling by Israel of what might otherwise have been a minor bilateral skirmish provoked New Zealand yesterday into imposing heavy diplomatic sanctions against Israel, suspending high-level visits and exchanges and declaring the Israeli president persona non grata, writes David Horovitz in Jerusalem
Asserting that Israeli agents had "deliberately breached" her country's sovereignty and broken international law in trying to illegally obtain New Zealand passports, the Prime Minister, Ms Helen Clark, said she took a "very dim view" of the "utterly unacceptable" affair which had "seriously strained relations" with Israel.
The alleged agents in question - Uriel Zosha Kelman (31) and Elisha Cara (50) - were jailed for six months each yesterday by a court in Wellington having recently pleaded guilty to attempting to illegally obtain the passport of a young New Zealand man who suffers from cerebral palsy.
Ms Clark implied yesterday that as galling as the crime was the resounding silence from Israel since the pair were arrested in March.
She said New Zealand had sought an explanation and an apology from Israel, but to no avail. She had been left with no choice but to impose the diplomatic sanctions.
Relations would not be restored without the Israeli government "swallowing its pride", coming clean and apologising.
Israel's Foreign Minister Mr Silvan Shalom vowed to "do everything necessary" to rebuild warm ties, saying Israel valued its hitherto excellent relations with New Zealand.
The Israeli foreign ministry was said to have been shocked by the ferocity of Ms Clark's comments and by the sanctions.
Israel's President Mr Moshe Katsav is to visit Australia next month, and there had been talk of a trip to New Zealand. However, Mr Katsav was publicly unperturbed yesterday by Ms Clark's rejection of such an opportunity.
Similarly, while Ms Clark said no new Israeli ambassador would be permitted to present credentials, Israel closed its embassy in Wellington last year for budgetary reasons, and thus was not about to appoint a new envoy anyway.
Nevertheless, Israeli officials acknowledged that the episode had further dented Israel's international image, and that more sensitive behind-the-scenes handling of the affair might have averted the harm.
A former director of the foreign ministry, Mr Alon Liel, convinced that the jailed duo are indeed Mossad agents, accused Mossad of harming "Israel's foreign relations image, and this is far worse than the bilateral damage caused to our relations with New Zealand".
Ms Clark referred yesterday to the capture of Mossad agents after a botched assassination attempt on a Hamas leader in Amman, Jordan, six years ago when the men were travelling on fraudulent Canadian passports.
She believes this may have been the motivation for this latest attempt to obtain New Zealand passports.