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Australia is Israel's Base for Spying Activities in Asia

Read here full article in Sydney Morning Herald18 February 2005

Israel uses Australia as a base to monitor the activities of potential enemies in the region, according to an American security expert.

According to Paul Buchanan,who has worked for the US military and defence department,Israeli diplomats and local supporters involved in such espionage in Australia were part of a campaign to gather intelligence on anti-Israel activity in South-East Asia and the Pacific.

"Australia and New Zealand are the first line of defence against an Islamist movement that operates in the Pacific Rim," said Buchanan, a senior lecturer in political studies at the University of Auckland.

"They spend most of their time looking at Indonesia and Malaysia and now the smaller Pacific island countries."

The Israeli diplomat expelled from Australia in December, and now linked to Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's daughter, was likely involved in intelligence gathering towards that end, said Paul Buchanan.

Canberra-based diplomat Amir Laty's visits to two alleged Israeli spies in custody in New Zealand last year, before his expulsion from Australia, suggested he was a "handler" of the pair, said the New Zealand-based academic.

The most credible suspicion about Laty was that he was engaged in official covert intelligence gathering, Buchanan said, where a diplomat conducts spying operations under the guise of his official role.

In his diplomatic capacity, Laty last year visited Israelis Uriel Zoshe Kelman and Eli Cara in an Auckland jail.

Prime Minister Helen Clark accused the pair of spying. Convicted last year of passport fraud, they were later deported from NZ.

Cara had been based in Australia as a travel agent and crossed the Tasman many times.

On Friday Clark's office said there were diplomatic moves afoot between New Zealand and Israel to resolve the issue, which has damaged relations between the two nations.

Buchanan said Clark had been foolish to confront Israel over the matter as the Jewish state would be less likely to share crucial intelligence with New Zealand.

Australia had taken the right approach to quietly expel Laty without explanation, he said.

"You do not want to jeopardise that relationship over a small diplomatic incident - the New Zealanders have."