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UK expels Israeli diplomat

Move after forgery of British passports in Dubai killing
Last Updated 23 March 2010, 17:00 IST

 
“Such misuse of British passports is intolerable,” British foreign secretary David Miliband said in remarks to the House of Commons. “The fact that this was done by a friendly country only adds insult to injury.”

He called Israel’s actions “completely unacceptable” and said “they must stop.”
The British decision to expel an Israeli diplomat is a new turn in Israel’s recent frictions with its closest Western allies, after a cooling of ties with the US in the wake of the Netanyahu government’s decision this month to approve new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.

Miliband did not identify the Israeli diplomat, but British news reports speculated that he was the London station chief of Mossad, Israel’s overseas spy agency. Officials in Dubai have accused Mossad of being behind the January 20 slaying of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel room there.

The Dubai officials say they have identified at least 26 suspects of a suspected Israeli hit squad that travelled to Dubai on fake identities and forged British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any involvement in Mabhouh’s killing, but the Israeli officials have described the slain Palestinian as an important figure in Hamas terrorist operations against Israel, and said he was deeply involved in an arms-smuggling operation that was used to support Hamas terrorist operations based in Gaza against Israel civilians.

First incident

Diplomatic expulsions are rare between allies with relationships as close as Britain and Israel, lending a special significance to the UK’s decision to expel the London-based diplomat.

Diplomats said it would be the first time a UK government has expelled an Israeli diplomat since Britain expelled an Israeli Embassy attache in June 1988.
On that occasion, the Margaret Thatcher government ordered the expulsion of Mossad agent Arie Regev after he was linked to a double-agent operation run by the spy agency in Britain that involved a Jerusalem-born Palestinian conducting covert surveillance on behalf of Mossad.

That case, too, involved a Mossad undercover operation that was suspected of planning the assassination of a suspected Palestinian hit man who had been active in Britain.

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(Published 23 March 2010, 17:00 IST)

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