How to Lose Friends and Influence

According to the BBC the British government is turning up the heat over the use of fake British passports to execute the Hamas leader in Dubai.  And who is feeling the heat? Guess.

Paul Reynolds describes our very British way of doing things "all very civilised and not terribly urgent",

The British government is proceeding cautiously and methodically in its efforts to establish whether Israel was responsible for the use of fraudulent British passports in the killing of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

It has set up an investigation and its future reaction will largely depend on the findings.
In the meantime its language in announcing that the Israel ambassador in London Ron Prosor would be going to the Foreign Office on Thursday was notably moderate.

A statement on Wednesday said simply that "given the links to Israel of a number the British Nationals affected, there will be a meeting between the FCO Permanent Under Secretary and the Israeli Ambassador tomorrow". This was an invitation not a summons.

At this stage, it is a matter of Britain asking questions, not making protests and taking retaliatory action (such as demanding an apology, restricting official contacts or even expelling the ambassador for a time).

Robert Fisk writing in the Independent suggests British or at least European collusion with Israel Britain's explanation is riddled with inconsistencies. It's time to come clean

Collusion. That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies. At 3.49pm yesterday afternoon (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source – impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi – to say that "the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?"

Donald McIntyre also in the Independent writes from the epicenter - Jerusalem Israel reels from backlash at killing of Hamas militant

Both the audacity and the competence of Mossad are being questioned after the latest episode in the agency's colourful history." -

 Bloody rather than 'colourful' perhaps. See also:

• Leading article: A murky affair that calls for a tougher British response
•  We'll get to the bottom of passport row, says David Miliband
• Death in Dubai: the plot thickens
• Israel reels from backlash at killing of Hamas militant

And in the Times, its Miliband who is on the ropes Miliband denies going soft on Israel over 'Mossad' killing

The Foreign Secretary insisted today that Britain was not "going through the motions" over the cloning of six British passports in a suspected Mossad assassination after Israel's Ambassador denied he was rebuked by the Government.

 And surprisingly in the Telegraph we learn that Miliband is 'outraged'! Wow.

But will we ever find out who did it I wonder? My money is on Fatah being blamed.