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UK to expel Israeli diplomat over passports for Dubai assassination 

DEBKAfile Special Report March 23, 2010, 1:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  Britain   Dubai   Israel 

Video clip showing suspected Dubai killers

Gordon Brown's government has decided to expel an Israeli diplomat, accusing an "Israeli security service" of responsibility for "cloning 15 British passports" used by the suspected assassins of Hamas arms facilitator Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai on Jan. 19. Foreign secretary David Miliband will deliver a statement to parliament later Tuesday, March 23, after summoning ambassador Ron Proser to the foreign office.
London admits to having no proof of Israel's complicity in the operation - or even which security arm carried out the forgery. All it claims is "evidence" that the passports were cloned when British passport-holders passed through airports on their way to Israel, with officials taking them away for "checks" of around 20 minutes. 
DEBKAfile's intelligence sources note: Fixing the blame on Israel is a deliberately unfriendly British act in keeping with its overall biased Middle East policies, and typically an accusation that is implied rather than stated and therefore damning by suggestion in the absence of proof.
According to our sources, the cloning of the passports could have taken place in any airport in the world by any other unnamed "security service." 
Furthermore, the British consulate in Jerusalem is staffed entirely by Palestinians who could easily have got hold of the passports held by Britons or dual citizens in Israel and used them for their own purposes. 
Prime minister Brown poses as a great friend of Israel. Yet his government chose to publish embarrassing insinuations against Israel on the very day its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, was on his way to the White House for a pretty important meeting with US president Barack Obama, and at a time when Israel had its hands full fending off international pressure on construction in Jerusalem. 
It should be noted in this regard that in the UK, any private individual can decide a foreign visitor is a war criminal and file an arrest warrant against him or her in a British court. No foreign nationals have ever been targeted for this quirky British custom except Israelis.  For this reason, Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni cancelled a visit to London, as have a number of top Israeli officers after receiving warnings they faced summary arrest at Heathrow airport. 
Brown and Miliband have repeatedly promised to amend the law which seriously embitters ties which British politicians persists in calling friendly. However, in January, minister of justice Jack Straw stepped in to postpone the requisite legislation indefinitely. Neither the prime minister nor foreign secretary demurred.

DEBKAfile's diplomatic sources expect the Israeli government to make appropriate response to London's new harassment and go beyond an expression of regret to a tit-for-tat declaration of a British diplomat posted in Tel Aviv persona not grata.

Britain expels Israeli diplomat

March 23, 2010

(JTA) – Britain has ordered the expulsion of a senior Israeli diplomat after an investigation concluded that Israel was responsible for forging national passports, Britain's foreign secretary said.

David Miliband, speaking Tuesday afternoon before the House of Commons, announced that "I have asked that a member of the embassy of Israel be withdrawn, and this is taking place."

“We’ve been very clear with the Israelis about the basis upon which we were asking the individual to leave.”

Miliband said an investigation by the Serious and Organized Crime Squad found that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency provided members of an assassination team with forged British passports in order to kill top Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel room in Dubai in January.

The expelled diplomat's identity was not given, but it has been speculated by some British media outlets that it is the Mossad's London representative.

Miliband said that he has demanded that Israel assure the British government that British citizen's identities will not be used again in such an operation.

Some 26 members of an assassination team widely speculated to have been Mossad agents used forged passports from Britain, Ireland, Australia and Germany to enter and leave Dubai. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in Mabhouh's assassination.

Expulsion of a diplomat is considered a very serious measure.

Israel's ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, was summoned Monday to the Foreign Office in London and told the results of the British inquiry into Mabhouh's slaying. The passports of British citizens that were forged reportedly were taken away at the airport in Israel for inspections.