Primarily guilty of doing what diplomats are generally urged to avoid

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
17 December '12..

Israel’s embassy in Ireland got itself in hot water for an inflammatory posting on its Facebook page that embarrassed the Jewish state. The post stated that were Jesus and Mary alive today and walking around Bethlehem without security, they would be lynched as Jews by the Palestinians. When a controversy over the post ensued, it was soon deleted and an apology was issued. But the Dublin embassy is not getting off so easy. The New York Times quoted Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent as reporting that this was just the latest though most egregious example of an aggressive stance taken by Israel’s envoys in Ireland. Apparently the embassy is guilty of speaking of Irish anti-Israel activists. It even had the temerity to re-post a satirical video about Irish media bias against Israel by the Latma comedy troupe.

All of this has brought down the opprobrium of Haaretz and the Times on the Dublin embassy. The Times even closed its piece on the subject by quoting a Palestinian response to the posting about Jesus and Mary that said that Christmas is freely celebrated in Bethlehem each year. But that remark, as well as much of the criticism of the supposedly undiplomatic behavior of the envoys, is off the mark. As much as it might have been wiser for anyone connected to the Israeli government to avoid any mention of the holy family or Christmas, their “offensive” post was primarily guilty of doing the one thing that diplomats are generally urged to avoid: telling the truth.

As the Times notes, Ireland has become a hotbed of anti-Israel incitement in the past few decades. Though Irish independence fighters and Jews struggling to free their ancient homeland once identified with each other due to their common British foe, the Irish Catholics now seem to identify more with the Palestinians while it is the Ulster Protestants who think of Israel as a role model for survival as a minority in a hostile environment. The Irish media is well known for its anti-Israel bias and agitation against the Jewish state that seems to be louder and nastier than in even neighboring Britain.

Perhaps that’s why Israel’s Dublin embassy has come to the reasonable conclusion that it needs to stop playing defense when it comes to correcting misperceptions about the Middle East conflict. In too many instances, Israeli diplomats and spokespersons have avoiding getting into scrapes but in the process failed to adequately defend their country at a time when a rising tide of anti-Semitism has distorted the debate about the Middle East conflict in Europe.

Analysis: The Legacy of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Jonathan Spyer
GLORIA Center
26 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

Wherever departed Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is now, he is presumably (I don't share this presumption. Y.) enjoying the considerable trouble the nature of his exit is causing his Israeli enemies.

The British decision to expel an unnamed Israeli diplomat following the conclusion of an investigation into the alleged use by Israel of cloned British passports in an assassination operation probably does not signal the onset of a general crisis in relations between London and Jerusalem. Still, it is not an everyday act, and the language used by the foreign secretary in announcing the expulsion was notably harsh.

This affair has so far traveled along similar lines to the last major set-to between the UK and Israel over the issue of Israeli intelligence activities overseas. In 1986, a number of forged British passports were discovered in an Israeli diplomatic pouch in West Germany. This incident was followed a year later by the apprehending of a Palestinian employed as a double agent by Israeli intelligence, together with a cache of weapons, in a northern English town. The result was the expulsion from Britain of Arie Regev, an official at the Israeli Embassy. Regev was widely regarded as the chief of the Mossad station in the UK.

Then, as now, the anger of senior British officials was real, not feigned. And the public revelations of the events meant that a response of a public nature was also inevitable. But the substantive response was a managed one. Cooperation between Israeli and British intelligence services suffered for a while. But channels of communication stayed open via Washington. Information of really crucial importance continued to be shared.

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