Bitter reactions among MKs to planned expulsion of Israeli diplomat from UK.
Israeli officials and MKs sharply criticized the announced intention of the UK government to expel an unnamed Israeli diplomat in response to its passports being used in the Dubai assassination of senior Hamas arms trafficker Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
“I think [the] British are behaving hypocritically and I don’t want to offend dogs on this issue, since some dogs are utterly loyal,” MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) told Sky News. “Who are they to judge us on the war on terror?”
Eldad added that Israel’s “natural reaction should be to expel one of the senior diplomats in the British Embassy, maybe the military attache or someone on his level.”
Eldad’s party colleague, MK Michael Ben-Ari, responded: “The British may be dogs, but they are not loyal to us, but rather to an anti-Semitic system, and Israeli diplomacy partially plays into their hands. This is anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism”.
In contrast, Foreign Affairs and Defense committee chairman MK Tzahi Hanegbi (Kadima) recommended not to respond to the crisis with Britain. “I believe keeping silent was a good policy at the height of the Dubai crisis, and certainly it is now, when it is nearly behind us.”
Jerusalem Post for more
(Submitted by Ingrid B. Mork)