ISRAEL HAS dismissed its deputy ambassador to Washington over alleged leaks to a journalist, prompting complaints from foreign ministry staff of a witchhunt being conducted by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.
A statement by foreign ministry director general Rafi Barak, sent to all foreign ministry employees, said Dan Arbell was recalled to Jerusalem after admitting to giving sensitive confidential information obtained in the course of his job to an Israeli journalist.
“In light of the diplomatic sensitivity and the seriousness of the matter, I concluded that I had no choice but to remove the employee from his post immediately,” Mr Barak wrote.
The incident in question took place in 2009 and concerned information given to the Ha’aretz newspaper before Mr Arbell was appointed Israel’s number two diplomat in Washington. Angry over repeated leaks from foreign ministry staff, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman ordered an investigation and took the unprecedented step of tasking the Israel security agency, the country’s internal intelligence branch, to find the culprit.
Alon Bar, the deputy head of the ministry’s department of strategic affairs, which deals largely with Iran, was dismissed.
However, he was later reinstated following a lie detector test, and appointed ambassador to Spain. The investigation continued and lead to the dismissal of Mr Arbell, who refused to take a lie detector test.
The move prompted an angry reaction from some foreign ministry staff who complained of a reign of terror since Mr Lieberman was appointed foreign minister by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. They noted that Mr Arbell was a veteran diplomat and one of the most respected and professional staffers in the ministry.
“This is a disproportionate step,” a foreign ministry employee told the Ma’ariv newspaper. “The issue at hand isn’t treason or even a slip of the tongue, and the punishment is simply unreasonable.” Nachman Shai, a member of the the opposition Kadima party in the Knesset, said the dismissal was clearly aimed at silencing and intimidating foreign ministry workers.
“The foreign minister and director general need to realise that in the world of public diplomacy, where Israel fails again and again, we need to draw the media and its representatives closer to the ministry and its workers, and not push them away,” he said.