Jean Shaoul and Chris Marsden
Shai Masot, an Israeli embassy staffer in London, was caught on camera in a sting operation plotting to “take down” Members of Parliament perceived as hostile to Israel.
Initial revelations from Al Jazeera showed secretly filmed discussion between Mosat and Maria Strizzola, a former parliamentary assistant to Robert Halfon, a junior education minister and former Conservative Party deputy chairman.
At one point, Masot asks, “Can I give you some MPs that you can take down?”
Strizzola replies, “Well you know, if you look hard enough I’m sure that there is something they are trying to hide.”
Masot continues, “Yeah, I have some MPs.”
His “hit list” included Deputy Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, one of a handful of Conservative MPs who has criticized Israel’s settlement policy and occupation of the West Bank for preventing the realization of a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. The Board of Deputies of British Jews accused him of being “breathtakingly one-sided,” while the Community Security Trust, a pro-Israel lobby group, equated his criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism.
Strizzola helpfully suggested “a little scandal maybe?” to Masot.
The “hit list” also included Crispin Blunt, the Conservative chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, because his views were “strongly pro-Arab rather than pro-Israel.”
The revelations are taken from a four-hour series entitled The Lobby to be screened by the Emir of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera news channel on January 15, as well as leaks published by the Mail on Sunday. Since last June, Al-Jazeera has used an undercover reporter posing…