Israel’s new Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo (who was named here days before his official appointment, breaking an Israeli gag order) has, according to the Telegraph’s Gordon Thomas (known for spinning a few fancy fictions about the Mossad), arranged for a meeting next month with his British counterparts to apologize for the agency’s cloning of the passports of a dozen British citizens in its hit against Hamas senior operative, Mahmoud al-Mabouh, in Dubai. According to Thomas, he will promise never to abuse British passports again in such an Israeli operation. Of course, the problem is that in the 1980s Israel did precisely the same thing and promised the Thatcher government it would never abuse British sovereignty again. Guess what happened? And can you ever believe these guys?
Britain, in retaliation for the flagrant offense, expelled Mossad’s London station chief and put all intelligence coordination on hold, a major blow not just to substantive Mossad spy activity, but also to its prestige.
The redeeming circumstance for Israel that Thomas has dug up in this case is that Pardo, then Mossad number 2, allegedly opposed use of foreign passports for the operation and was overruled by the big, bad then-agency chief, Meir Dagan. So Dagan gets to be the bad guy, with the hope being that the new guy, Pardo, cleans up the mess his former boss made and all is well in this best of all possible spy worlds.
Pardo, according to Thomas, will bring all sorts of peace offerings and other techno-goodies in his sulha with the heads of MI5 and MI6, foreign minister Hague and home secretary May. He will bring new face recognition software which may (or may not) help identify the killers of MI6 codebreaker, Gareth Williams. What is of course deliciously ironic about this is that the Dubai police used their own facial recognition software to identify the Israeli agents who murdered al-Mabouh. Maybe Pardo should be making his next trip to Dubai to check out the competition?
He will also feed his British counterparts more of that good spook stuff that Mossad peddles concerning Iran (and hope they credit it). Thomas notes that Mossad is one of the few western intelligence agencies with agents inside Iran. My hunch is that what he really means is that the Israelis have cooked up a marriage of convenience with the Mujahadeen a-Khalq (MKO) and Jundallah, whereby the latter provide agents to plant bombs to kill Iranian scientists.
Similarly, the Mossad has been known to plant Iranian government forgeries with its MKO friends, who trumpet the fakes to the world as legitimate documents proving Iran is developing a nuclear trigger device, or whatever fraud of the moment Mossad is attempting to pass off as bona fide. That’s, I think what Thomas really means when he says Mossad has agents in Iran. It doesn’t really. It has collaborators in the sense that the U.S. collaborated with the Afghani mujahadeen against the Soviets in the 1970-80s. And look where that got us.
I find it interesting and suggestive that Thomas has Pardo offering to expand its surveillance of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency (remember, the Russians assassinated a turncoat agent in London several years ago and relations have never been the same with the Putin government).
A few months ago, a senior Russian spy operative was mysteriously assassinated in Syria. He was rumored to have been deeply involved in arming Syrian and Hezbollah. Suspicion fell, as it often does in such circumstances, on the Israelis, though many thought even Israel would not have the b&$$s to take out one of Putin’s top foreign agents.
One wonders whether Israel is trying to subtly pass along a message to the Russians that if they don’t play ball concerning Iran (stopping its involvement with the Bushehr reactor, cancelling anti-aircraft contracts, approving sanctions, etc.) that Israel will do its best to make its life miserable in whatever ways small and large it can. And of course two can play at this game as well…
My guess is that there are other matters in bilateral British-Israeli relations that be in play as well. Israel desperately wants its generals and political leaders to be able to spread the Good News about Israel in Britain, but they’ve been prevented from doing so by a series of nasty arrest warrants taken out by human rights activists. They threaten to dump Israel’s representatives in a British prison in consideration of possible war crimes charges against them (remember Operation Cast Lead?).
I’m guessing that Prime Minister Cameron may be negotiating some sort of package deal of Israeli promises and British counter-promises whereby each side will be able to say it got something worthwhile out of the deal. My hope of course is that this isn’t the case and that Parliament will not squash the provision allowing for international war crimes arrest warrants in Britain. But it’s possible the Cameron government will do its best to do away with this excellent measure allowing for accountability for those who may be guilty of war crimes.
The question is whether Thomas’ report has merit and such a meeting will happen; and whether the Brits will be lulled by the fairy dust Pardo will sprinkle on them.
Related articles
- Mossad: was this the chief’s last hit? (telegraph.co.uk)
Will pardo also promise not to use real german passports to equip his killer-teams with in further “operations”?
Only if Angela Merkel had the b(&^^s to expel Mossad’s Berlin station chief, which she didn’t.
In Israel and the USA Merkel seems to be more valued than here in Germany? So she will allways do everything to please those countries…
Unfortunately the law making changes to British use of universal jurisdiction has already gone through. It was debated and passed on 13th December. The relevant bit is section 151 of the Police Reform Bill, if you want to look up the debate in ‘Hansard’ and see Theresa May insisting that the change has nothing to do with Israeli pressure. Now the Direction of Public Prosecutions has to be consulted before an arrest warrant can be issued. I expected nothing else – it was an election pledge of the Tories, after all. The hope was that Nick Clegg might put up a bit of opposition, but on November 15th he made a policy U-turn and provoked a gleeful headline in the ‘Jewish Chronicle’: CLEGG ADMITS HE WAS WRONG ABOUT ISRAEL. As for David Cameron, the PM himself, he is an official member of Conservative Friends of Israel.
I see that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is still offering some pointed advice about the inadvisability of British travellers in Israel handing over their passports to third parties, ‘including Israeli officials’, so it evidently believes passport cloning to be a threat. I will keep my eye on that page and see if it changes. I expect that the FCO will retain this advice.
I’m so sorry to have missed that development. It deserved a post draped in black mourning ribbon for the demise of a small part of British legal tradition. So Pardo’s return to England where he can’t be threatened now w. an arrest warrant, can be seen as a thank-you to the Tories & their SD enablers for providing Israeli officials impunity. How sad.
Travelling killers cannot be arrested anymore, and they cannot be brought to the ICC in Den Haag, NL.
The US-Army is allowed to “liberate” their killers by forcefull invasion of a independant country, the Netherlands…
The DPP has to be consulted, but his decisions are subject to judicial review, as former deputy Prime Minister is applying for judicial review of the perverse decision not to prosecute (for illegal phone hacking) Andy Coulson, a Rupert Murdoch stooge and now David Cameron’s right hand man.
So, if the DPP refuses to act on an international warrant, we can apply for judicial review of that decision.
It’s not as if Mossad were not second on the suspect list for the murder of Gareth Williams, either.
Today’s Mail on Sunday leader on THAT subject would not have been very comfortable reading for David Cameron.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1341627/MAIL-ON-SUNDAY-COMMENT-No-leaks-spy-Gareth-Williams–just-truth.html
which arose out of:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1341571/MI6-spy-Gareth-Williams-secret-double-identity-gay-friend-insists.html
Medawar’s contempt for David Cameron grows by the day, and his craven stance on these matters is exceeded in the visceral nausea stakes only by a proposal to erect a statue/idol of Antony Charles Lynton Blair in the House of Commons.
As a progressive European, I support the need of Iran to develop nuclear weapons to deter zionist adventurism. The recent bus poster escapade shows that Amerika is not such a democracy either
The fact is though that Iran is not developing nukes and has no rationale for them. Why hasn’t anyone attacked yet? No nuke deterrent needed. Not a 20-30 year old delivery device either. The context of all this has been shifted to a lie yet again. I agree with your last sentence. They are pushing the propaganda hard in Germany as of late.
Great, why don’t we just blow up the world & be done w. it? This smacks to me of trollism. Watch yr step…
Progressive? I’ve yet to meet a progressive person who has any suppoort at all for nuclear weapons to be held by any country.
That’s why I think it was a bit of trollism.
Very keen analysis of the reach of Mossad within Iran. The problem with trusting terrorist groups to do your bidding is two fold:
(1) they become loose cannon carriers of your will and reputation, representing you in ways that you may not want to be represented, and against powerful foes; and,
(2) the terrorists themselves are nervous of a bigger ally and will consistently (as history shows) plot to overthrow the ally, too, once all is said and done.
The MKO/MEK/NCRI/Mujahedin-e Khalq is so foaming at the mouth that they make Avigdor Lieberman look like Mary Poppins. Their quest for power in Iran led them to side with Saddam to kill their own countrymen. What allegiances does this Islamo-Marxist cult have? Alliances based on which way the ephemeral political winds are blowing are unwise.
The MEK is truly a bunch of weirdo cultists as much as anything else. Even a brief internal look makes that very clear.
“According to Thomas, he [Tamir Pardo] will promise never to abuse British passports again in such an Israeli
operation. ”
He is not lying. The key word is “such.” Every operation is different….
What does the UK get from being nice to Israel? How many Israeli divisions are depolying to Afghanistan to replace NATO troops?
Likewise, what does that tee-shirt mean that says “Don’t worry, America…Israel is behind you!”, showing a picture of a US fighter-bomber with Israeli markings? Is this a cynical joke?
Am I supposed to feel comforted every time I see a NYC bus with an “attack Iran” advertisement?
If Americans are supposed to feel reassured that Israelis will cheer us on into Iran, just what, to repeat, do the British get? A football/soccer player?
Perhaps they’ve taken David Cameron for a complete Shmuck, if that’s the word? (Whatever the Hebrew is for the East Yorkshire, “twannock”.)
Shmuck is Yiddish not Hebrew meaning male genitals – not aquainted with east Yorkshire vernacular
I think the term comes fr. the German for “jewels.”