Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
13 February
AL JAZEERA STING SNARES 'THE LOBBY'
On this day in 2017, Al Jazeera revealed senior Israeli Embassy diplomat Shai Masot discussing on video his conversations with SNP Deputy Leader, Angus Robertson: "I had hours and hours with him, like I think nine hours in total of sitting around in the embassy…we had a lot of meetings and he told us a lot of stories”. Masot said Robertson told him of a 14th-century manuscript that laid claim to the Scottish nation by declaring that the Scots were one of the lost tribes of Israel.
كمين الجزيرة اصطاد اللوبي
13 فبراير
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 2017 ، كشفت قناة الجزيرة عن الدبلوماسي الإسرائيلي البارز شاي ماسوت وهو يناقش بالفيديو محادثاته مع نائب رئيس الحزب الوطني الاسكتلندي ، أنجوس روبرتسون: "لقد أمضيت ساعات وساعات معه ، كما أعتقد 9 ساعات في المجموع من الجلوس في السفارة ... لقد عقدنا الكثير من الاجتماعات وأخبرنا الكثير من القصص ". قال ماسوت إن روبرتسون أخبره عن مخطوطة من القرن الرابع عشر تطالب بالأمة الاسكتلندية بإعلانها أن الاسكتلنديين كانوا إحدى قبائل إسرائيل المفقودة
"I love Angus", said Israeli spy, Shai Masot
A now disgraced senior diplomat at the Israeli embassy in London spent several hours courting the Scottish National Party’s deputy leader ahead of his official trip to Israel. “I had hours and hours with him, like I think nine hours in total of sitting around in the embassy … we had a lot of meetings and he told us a lot of stories,” Masot told 'Robin' and their companion, Maria Strizzolo, a British civil servant active with the Conservative Friends of Israel parliamentary group,
Strizzolo was clearly won over. “I actually really like him,” she said. “Mmm … I love Angus,” Masot replied, apparently keen to let his companions know that Robertson was someone Israel could work with at a political level. Masot told 'Robin', the undercover Al Jazeera reporter, that he wanted grassroots pro-Israel movements to fill a “vacuum” in the SNP.
Speaking to The Jewish Chronicle on his return in November, Robertson praised Israel’s success as a “start-up nation” and looked forward to the “huge potential” for trade and tourism with Scotland. He also cited Israel’s relationship with Jews living in the diaspora as something Scotland could learn from.
Israeli spy snared on camera plotting takedown of UK minister
“Can I give you some MPs that I would suggest you would take down?” asked Israeli spy, Shai Masot, to UK civil servant.
Maria Strizzolo: (laughing): “Well you know, if you look hard enough I’m sure that there is something that they’re trying to hide.”
Masot says of “deputy foreign minister”, Sir Alan Duncan: “He’s doing a lot of problems.”
Strizzolo: “I thought we had, you know, neutralised him a little bit, no?”
Johnson's spokeman at the UK Foreign Office quickly accepted an Israeli apology:“The Israeli Ambassador has apologised and is clear these comments do not reflect the views of the Embassy or Government of Israel. The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed.”
Masot's business card identified him as “a senior political officer”. He had been a major in the Israeli military and was chief point of contact between the London embassy and British MPs, liaising with ministers and officials at the Foreign Office. After the incriminating video was aired, the Israeli Embassy said he was a “junior embassy employee”
Pro-Israel mouthpiece, Jewish Chronicle, deemed anyone recommending the Al Jazeera journalism a conspiracy theorist and an anti-semite. The paper chose to ignore the Israeli spy's words caught on camera: “We’ve just now got the money, it’s more than 1 million pounds, it’s a lot of money," for Labour Friends of Israel.
The JC's smear was rebutted by Ofcom , which "cleared al-Jazeera of antisemitism and breaching impartiality rules over an undercover investigation that caught an Israeli embassy official plotting to “take down” British MPs regarded as hostile towards Israel".
The parallel series in the USA was suppressed by Al Jazeera, under huge pressure, but was leaked some time later in its entirety.
Masot considered then-UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson "an idiot".