Photo: Reuters

I’d be lying if I tried to pretend that I wasn’t secretly pretty psyched that Britain is expelling an Israeli diplomat.

Diplomatic work between Britain and Israel needs to be conducted according to the highest standards of trust. The work of our Embassy in Israel, and the Israeli Embassy in London, is vital to the cooperation between our countries. So is the Strategic Dialogue between our countries. These ties are important and we want them to continue. However I have asked that a member of the Embassy of Israel be withdrawn from the UK as a result of this affair, and this is taking place.

My own gut reaction is tempered by the fact that the reasoning is pretty dreadful, though. That Israel can get away with bloodshed and theft in Palestine, but only manages to elicit a response when it clones some passports for an assassination in Dubai, speaks volumes about the priorities of the British Foreign Office and its gutless toad of a Foreign Minister. This reeks of opportunism; Israel is a tarnished brand, this week anyway, and if it gets Miliband’s name in the papers only a few weeks before an election – and, doubtless, a Labour leadership campaign – then so much the better.

Either way, it’s been a miserable week or two for Israel and its foreign policy. Between the Biden insult, the Turkey spies debacle, and now Mauritania – one of the first Muslim states to normalise relations with Israel – severing ties, Israel’s rebranding mission seems to have tanked catastrophically.