Michael Hines, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
July 11, 2005

Intelligence officials and detectives from about two dozen countries - including Israeli investigators and Spanish ones who worked on the Madrid bombing case - met over the weekend with British officials to discuss leads in last week's terrorist attacks, police said Monday.

"We told them what the state of the investigation was" during the private meeting Saturday at Scotland Yard, which included British police and the MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, said a Metropolitan Police spokesman according to the Associated Press. "If they can offer any material assistance, we're not going to turn it down."

Painful Similarities

Material help is something Israel is better suited than almost any other nation on earth to offer London’s forensic investigators during the arduous process of identifying the dozens of body fragments painstakingly removed from the underground bomb sites.

But unlike the other nations represented at the Scotland Yard briefing on Saturday, Israel must balance its desire and ability to assist with a pressing need to keep its distance for fear of getting blamed.

Despite the painful similarity between the pictures of a bombed-out red London bus and the recent wave of suicide bus bombings in Israel, Sharon gave Israeli

Ministers and spokespeople a stern warning to avoid comparisons on Friday reflecting his government’s concern to "keep Israel out of the story." And the concern was well placed.

Israeli 'tip-off'

In the hours after Thursday’s rush hour bombings -- a routine police call to visiting Israeli Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that a London hotel where he was due to speak was close by the Aldgate bombing quickly grew into a mainstream press report that the Israeli Embassy had been "tipped off" about the attacks first.

The story echoed the widely circulated internet rumor -- which is taken as fact in much of the Arab world - that the Jews were warned to stay away from work on the morning of the 9/11 attacks in New York and that the planes were not flown by Islamic radicals but by the Mossad.

Israeli officials quickly moved to stamp out the story while Sharon studiously avoided any reference to Israel’s extensive experience of terror in expressing shock at the "awful crime that was committed against innocent Britons." In a simple statement from his office the PM said: "All of Israel expresses solidarity with the residents of Great Britain, feels their pain, and sends condolences to the families of those killed and best wishes for a quick recovery to those who were injured."

Changing the Script

But by Friday the inevitable happened when British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to change the scrip for the concluding statement of the G8 meeting of the world’s industrialized nations in Scotland.

Instead of concentrating on the group's historic resolution on African debt relief, the G8 followed up on the attacks with a decision to pump $3 billion into the Palestinian economy in the next three years. No one needed to mention Israel to write the headline the Jewish State most feared -- that the festering Middle East conflict was in part to blame for the London atrocities.

Multiple stories issued by the AP over the weekend only intensified that impression with Blair quoted telling the BBC that the "very deep roots" of global terrorism such as that suffered by Londoners was "linked to the Israel-Palestinian conflict." In fact, according to a retraction issued by the news agency on Sunday to media watchdog CAMERA, "Blair did not specifically mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" in his BBC interview. But the damage was done.

Writing in the conservative Front Page Magazine on Friday, celebrated US lawyer Alan Dershowitz suggested that though the symbolism of the connection between the G8 grant and the London bombings "may be lost on some Westerners" it clearly sent a powerful message to terrorists and potential terrorists: namely, that terrorism works."

"There were no grants announced to the Tibetans, who have been occupied more brutally and for a longer period of time than the Palestinians. The Tibetans, however, have never resorted to terrorism," Dershowitz argued before suggesting that the worldwide recognition attributed to the Palestinian cause comes from their leadership’s decision over many decades to use terrorism "as the tactic of first resort."

"The entire world must unite in the war against terrorism," Sharon stressed in comments conveyed by phone to Blair on Friday. In them he reflected Israel’s view that Islamic terror is a global, not just an Israeli phenomenon and sooner or later the rest of the world will have open their eyes to its real causes.

Until then, $3 billion to the Palestinians will have to suffice.

Copyright © 2005 International Christian Embassy Jerusalem