| | The newspapers today dwell on the government’s summoning the Israeli Ambassador to the UK to explain the use of British passports by assassins in the murder of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month.
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The papers report Israel’s ambassador’s summons to the foreign office to “share information” on the statements made by the Dubai police that the killers were traveling on a number of British passports. As well as the PM’s remarks yesterday that a “full investigation” is to be conducted so that “The evidence [can] assembled about what has actually happened and how it happened and why it happened. [I]t is necessary for us to accumulate that evidence before we can make statements.”
The government’s response has, rightly, been condemned as cowardly and craven. The Independent editorial today observes:
‘…the Prime Minister called for a "full investigation" into how pseudo-British passports were allegedly used by Mr Mabhouh's killers – which sounded all very civilised and not terribly urgent. And had the Foreign Office made any representations to Israel? No it had not. Nor, it initially said, were there plans to do so – though the ambassador is now being called in today. Even accepting that suspects are innocent until proved guilty, this looks like extraordinarily supine behaviour in a situation where, in essence, the good name of our country has been impugned…. if political murder is now unacceptable to Dubai, how much more unacceptable should it be to the British government? Those false passports call for a much more muscular response than has so far been forthcoming.’
Seumas Milne in his column in the Guardian today, comments:
‘...while Mossad has used British documents in other attacks, it has naturally steered clear of faking the passports of its US sponsor. So at the same time as Israel is demanding the British government change the law without delay to prevent the arrest of visiting Israeli leaders on war crimes charges, what is Britain planning to do over the abuse of its citizens' identity to carry out state-directed murder?
‘So far the response of British ministers to Mossad's provocation has been craven. Unless that changes fast, they can only increase the risk of being drawn further into a conflict ready to erupt again at any time.’ And the Guardian editorial asks why the UK ‘has been so reluctant to pull the levers at its disposal’ to express its deep disquiet over the allegations. It states:
‘British passports are the property of the British government. When that government says and does nothing for six days after it was given evidence that Mossad agents stole the identity of six British citizens to assassinate a Hamas commander in Dubai, it starts to seem as if Israel was right to think it could get away with it. The Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, yesterday predicted the incident would have no effect on British relations.
‘The only thing that will give Mossad pause for thought the next time it eyes a target for assassination is if its political masters are made to feel the consequences of its actions. There are at any given moment a plethora of tools at the disposal of Britain and the EU, from bilateral diplomatic contacts and military contacts to arms and trade agreements. London is a key diplomatic listening post for the Middle East, and Britain is a vital interlocutor with the Palestinians. There are any number of ways of getting the message across, not least the question of whether to change the law to make it harder for British courts to issue arrest warrants, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, for former Israeli ministers accused of war crimes. The enduring mystery is why Britain has been so reluctant to pull the levers at its disposal.’
It is difficult to reconcile the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband’s, protestations at the time of the Livni affair that “Israel is a strategic partner and a close friend of the UK. We are determined to protect and develop these ties,” with the Prime Minister’s remarks yesterday that “The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care. A British passport is an important part of being British.”
With ‘close friends’ like these threatening with impunity the security of Britons traveling abroad, who needs enemies? More importantly, will the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary move beyond diplomatic niceties and insist that Israel do some straight-talking? As Robert Fisk notes today, unless the UK takes urgent and substantive action to show that it takes seriously the details emerging from Dubai over the killing of Mabhouh, many will interpret its reticence as collusion.
Fisk writes:
"Collusion. That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect - only suspect, mark you - that Europe's 'security collaboration' with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies."
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