UK-Israel relations hit the rocks over Dubai assanation

[jimmy olsen]

Go Mossad! 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/uk-israeli-ambassador-dubai-killing

UK calls in Israeli ambassador as Dubai killing row escalates

Relations in Tel Aviv now in 'deep freeze', say British officials
    * Julian Borger
    * guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 February 2010 21.45 GMT
    * Article history

Britain tonight fired the first shot in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in the country's ambassador to explain the use of faked British passports by a hit squad who targeted a Hamas official in Dubai.

The Israeli ambassador has been summoned to the foreign office to "share information" about the assassins' use of identities stolen from six British citizens living in Israel, as part of the meticulously orchestrated assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Britain has stopped short of accusing Israel of involvement, but to signal its displeasure, the Foreign Office ignored an Israeli plea to keep the summons secret. "Relations were in the freezer before this. They are in the deep freeze now," an official told the Guardian.

Gordon Brown yesterday launched an investigation into the use of the fake passports, which will be led by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). The British embassy in Tel Aviv is also contacting the British nationals affected in the plot, "and stands ready to provide them with the support that they need", the Foreign Office said in a statement last night.

"The British passport is an important part of being British and we have to make sure everything is done to protect it," Brown told LBC radio yesterday.

Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, insisted that there was no proof that the Mossad was involved in Mabhouh's killing in a Dubai hotel last month, but added that Israel had a "policy of ambiguity" on intelligence matters.

However, there were calls in Israel for an internal government enquiry into whether the Mossad was responsible for identity theft against dual nationals, and criticism of its chief, Meir Dagan, for what critics described as a clumsy operation that risked alienating European allies.

"What began as a heart attack turned out to be an assassination, which led to a probe, which turned into the current passport affair," a columnist, Yoav Limor, wrote in Israel Hayom, a pro-government newspaper. "It is doubtful whether this is the end of the affair."

Israel's ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, will meet Peter Ricketts, head of the diplomatic service and the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office.

Yesterday more details emerged about the assassination plot.

• The Guardian learned that a key Hamas security official is under arrest in Syria on suspicion of having helped the assassins identify Mabhouh as their target.

• Reports that the hit squad could have been bigger than the 11 suspects named by the Dubai police appear to have been confirmed by surveillance pictures showing other possible accomplices, including a second woman.

• Authorities in Vienna have begun an investigation into whether Austria was used as a logistical hub for the operation, after seven of the mobile phones used by the killers had Austrian SIM cards.

• Three of the killers entered Dubai with forged Irish passports that had numbers lifted from legitimate travel documents.

It is not the first British-Israeli row over the misuse of British passports. British officials are particularly angry because the Israeli government pledged that there would be no repeat of an incident in 1987, in which Mossad agents acquired and tampered with British passports.

Lieberman said he believed that relations with Britain would not be damaged. "I think Britain recognises that Israel is a responsible country and that our security activity is conducted according to very clear, cautious and responsible rules of the game. Therefore we have no cause for concern," he said.

However, the former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell, a member of the Commons foreign affairs committee, welcomed the decision to confront the Israeli government directly. He said: "The Israeli government must come clean on what it knew and when it knew it."

France yesterday also claimed that the French passport used by one of the assassins had been forged. A source close to the French intelligence services told Reuters a French passport which Dubai said had been used in the operation had a valid number but incorrect name. "It was a very good fake," the source said.

Hamas, meanwhile, vowed vengeance for Mabhouh's assassination. At a memorial rally in Gaza, masked and armed Hamas militants vowed that the movement's armed wing, Izz-el Deen al-Qassam, "will never rest until they reach his killers".

[MadImmortalMan]

 

[Sheilbh]

Surely this is a Mossad operation.  I think it's very poor form on Israel's part.

[Razgovory]

Huh.  The British government seems more angry about this, then when say, the Russians assassinated a British citizen in Britain.

[Jaron]

Israel is acting like an international outlaw once again.

[Sheilbh]

Huh.  The British government seems more angry about this, then when say, the Russians assassinated a British citizen in Britain.

I think you've just not been paying attention.  Anglo-Russian relations still haven't really recovered.  Though it pre-dates that (really it starts with Britain offering refuge to an oligarch unpopular with the Kremlin and a Chechen leader).  But our relations are incredibly poor.  Diplomats have been expelled, the British Council's been shut down for 'spying', the Foreign Secretary visited Tbilisi during the war and declared Britain's 'solidarity' with the Georgian people.  Hell, I think the Russians have started long-range surveillance flights near British territory and the RAF is regularly scrambled to show the flag.

Edit:  Reading about the immediate aftermath to the Litvinenko murder several Russian diplomats were expelled, the ambassador was summoned, the highest level of the government went on the record about it, visa regulations for Russian citizens were tightened (and the number made available restricted) and of course there was a police investigation and extradition request of a Russian citizen.  Indeed the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Britain seemed to be risking relations with Moscow for the 'sake of one man'.

[DGuller]

Israelis assanated him?  How barbaric. 

[The Brain]

Real classy, Israel. I understand why the Brits are fucking pissed.

[Tamas]

The jews should have abducted a ship-load of british navy sailors. The Brits would be begging them to be kind and release them, or else they would be forced to ask again.

[Octavian]

Go Mossad! 

Assuming Mossad did it:

I'm all for killing Hamas guys and other crazy mohammedeans but Mossad doesn't really deserve praise for the way they handled the operation.

As for the Uk's outrage...meh who cares.

[Jaron]

They're doing it as a favor to Ireland.


If the headline says Ireland pissed off, no one would give a shit. Besides that, the Irish are just as bad as the Palestinians..

[Octavian]

the Irish are just as bad as the Palestinians..

Agreed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boO4RowROiw


 

[Martinus]

I'm all with the Brits on this. This is fucking disgraceful (I am not talking about killing some Hamas dude but stealing the identities of British citizens to carry out the deed). Fucking Jews think they can do anything because their American fuckbuddies will protect them.

[Martinus]

Huh.  The British government seems more angry about this, then when say, the Russians assassinated a British citizen in Britain.

I think you've just not been paying attention.  Anglo-Russian relations still haven't really recovered.  Though it pre-dates that (really it starts with Britain offering refuge to an oligarch unpopular with the Kremlin and a Chechen leader).  But our relations are incredibly poor.  Diplomats have been expelled, the British Council's been shut down for 'spying', the Foreign Secretary visited Tbilisi during the war and declared Britain's 'solidarity' with the Georgian people.  Hell, I think the Russians have started long-range surveillance flights near British territory and the RAF is regularly scrambled to show the flag.

Edit:  Reading about the immediate aftermath to the Litvinenko murder several Russian diplomats were expelled, the ambassador was summoned, the highest level of the government went on the record about it, visa regulations for Russian citizens were tightened (and the number made available restricted) and of course there was a police investigation and extradition request of a Russian citizen.  Indeed the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Britain seemed to be risking relations with Moscow for the 'sake of one man'.

Don't waste your breath on responding to Raz's inane trolls.

[jimmy olsen]

I'm all with the Brits on this. This is fucking disgraceful (I am not talking about killing some Hamas dude but stealing the identities of British citizens to carry out the deed). Fucking Jews think they can do anything because their American fuckbuddies will protect them.

Mossad's pulled shit like this since the beginning, we weren't that close to them in the 50s.