Israel under suspicion

The caution apparent from our security services when dealing with holders of Israeli passports who visit this country is understandable. New Zealanders have not forgotten, nor forgiven, the attempt in 2004 by presumed Israeli agents to obtain by deception or identity theft New Zealand passports.

As subsequent events have demonstrated, the Israel security agencies are known to use false passports in pursuit of targets, including in assassinations. It is also known New Zealand passports are highly valued for their integrity.

The 2004 action, in the name of a supposedly friendly nation, was nothing less than an attack on that integrity by a nation hypersensitive to criticism of its behaviour.

The Security Intelligence Service and the police, and no doubt other secret entities, were therefore entitled to be suspicious of the sequence of events associated with a group of Israeli citizens caught in the February Christchurch earthquake.

The four visitors were using a van, and were apparently tourists backpacking around the country.

One was killed and the other three left the country within 12 hours, assisted by their government and the Israel embassy. There were other young Israelis in Christchurch at the time, and at least one was initially thought to have been killed but was later said to have left the country.

The speed with which the surviving group left the country aroused the interest of the security agency and an investigation, which is continuing, began.

Prime Minister John Key has said he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only once at the time of the earthquake and there was no request by him to facilitate the removal of the Israelis.

Yet the arrival of an 11-member privately-funded search and rescue team from Israel soon afterwards further aroused concerns, and it was denied access to the red zone by the Government on grounds it lacked proper credentials and was not United Nations-accredited.

According to one report, since discounted, it was feared the tourists had attempted to gain access to the police national computer database. Mr Key subsequently declared the investigation had not found any link between the group and Israeli intelligence services.

That assurance must be taken at face value. The important point is an investigation was thought to be needed. More pertinent, too, is the apparent fact the news of the investigation - a matter usually kept closely secret - was leaked to a newspaper editor, presumably with the intention it be made public.

That being so, the purpose can surely only have been to send an informal message to the Government of Israel that, however normal official relations might now be between it and the New Zealand Government after the 2004 incident, our security services continue to keep a close watch on visiting Israelis and their activities, especially when those activities appear even superficially to be suspicious.

As in all such incidents, there remain unanswered questions. It has not been disclosed what specific reasons there were to arouse suspicion about the group. One claim, that the dead Israeli had five passports in his possession, has been denied.

More curiously, there has been no reason given why the security authorities thought the police computer system might have been breached. Mr Key's initial responses to questions appeared less than adequate, indeed misleading, perhaps because he was at the time visiting the United States.

However, he must have been thoroughly briefed about the affair - he holds the warrant of Minister in charge of the SIS - yet was sufficiently vague to leave an impression that a security breach may have taken place.

Not until some time later did Mr Key produce a form of words to support his contention nothing amiss had been discovered. Even this was not categorical, clearly implying the investigation is continuing, so doubt remains in the minds of some.

That, of course, does not satisfy the Israel Government or its unofficial spokesmen, whose reaction has been a mixture of anger at such allegations and accusations the claims are "science fiction".

One recently-published interpretation in Israel suggested domestic New Zealand politics were behind the allegations, with unnamed officials contending Mr Key's opponents were trying to portray him as "lenient" on Israel in the lead-up to the general election - as unlikely a story, perhaps, as the original cause for suspicion.