Israel may cut all flights to South Africa on Sunday as spat over El Al security goes unresolved.
Israel’s national airline El Al may be forced to ground all flights to South Africa on Sunday after South Africa accused Israel of violating international law by using armed Israeli intelligence agents with diplomatic passports to screen passengers boarding the El Al flights in South Africa.
A diplomatic quarrel between the two countries broke out in September after “Carte Blanche”, a South African investigative television program, alleged that the El Al’s policy was to profile passengers based on race and religion and offered evidence that its security personnel were actually employed by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.
Using hidden cameras, detectives and testimony from a former South African El Al security officer disgruntled over the alleged non-payment of a bonus by El Al, the South African investigative program found evidence that the security personnel for El Al, a private company, had their guns licensed through the Israeli embassy and alleged that the officers were agents of Israel’s secret service. The program explicitly accused the Israelis of using racist security policies and knowingly violating South African law.
The program led to an outcry in South Africa, a country still recovering from the wounds of decades of racial persecution during the Apartheid era, and in November South Africa revoked the diplomatic immunity of all El Al staff operating in the country.
A team of Israeli diplomats was dispatched to South Africa to try resolve the matter, but after months of negotiations the two countries do not seem to have come to an agreement on the status and operation of Israeli security personnel in the country.
El Al has now announced that it will cancel all flights to South Africa if its security staff are not provided with diplomatic passports by the end of the month.
Israeli President Shimon Peres is expected to raise the issue when he meets his South African counterpart President Jacob Zuma at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
El Al refused to comment on the content of the negotiations.
"The Israeli Foreign Ministry is dealing with this and we are hoping that the matter will be solved," Anat Friedman, a spokesperson with El Al Israel Airlines told The Media Line.
Andy David, a spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Israel would not waver on security.
"In order for us to fly anywhere in the world there are some security preconditions that need to be fulfilled," he told The Media Line. "If they are not fulfilled then El Al cannot fly. With regards to South Africa, the two governments have been in touch and are trying to solve the matter, but if the necessary preconditions for the security of the El Al flight cannot be met then El Al will have to stop flying to South Africa."
South African officials were also tight lipped on the status of the late-hour negotiations.
"We cannot comment on discussions that are ongoing," Elizabeth Smith, Political and Trade Counsellor at the South African Embassy in Tel Aviv told The Media Line. "We prefer to keep these discussions on a bilateral basis and not to speak about the issue indirectly through the media."
But a senior South African Foreign Affairs official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the issue centered around diplomatic immunity.
"South Africa did not expel a diplomat or withdraw the diplomatic immunity of a diplomat," the official told The Media Line. "We withdrew diplomatic immunity for someone who was not a diplomat."
"We are following our obligations under international law," they said. "The Vienna convention is an agreement among states to regulate who is entitled to diplomatic immunity and who is not. Security officers working outside of embassies are not entitled to diplomatic immunity."
"Now the governments are trying to work out how they can best solve the problem in such a way that our adherence to international law is respected and our domestic legislation is respected," the official added, referring to South African legislation governing where armed security personnel can operate.
Directives from the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, require Israeli airlines to provide their own security in foreign airports, an arrangement host countries have traditionally accepted. The head of an Israeli airline’s security team in a particular country, a Shin Bet agent, is generally given a diplomatic passport so as to operate with diplomatic immunity.
"Israel Security Agency agents probably operate wherever they perceive a threat," David J Bentley, an analyst with Big Pond Aviation told The Media Line. "Authorities around the world are generally just not quite sure how to handle the situation."
El Al flies a Boeing 767-300 to Johannesburg three times a week, carrying between 1235 and 1400 passengers a week when at full capacity. El Al is the only airline that runs direct flights between Israel and South Africa.
"With the World Cup coming up in South Africa this year and the world’s media so focused on South Africa, South African authorities simply do not want any more attention on the country in a manner in which they are not in control of," Bentley said. "To have agents of another country operating in their territory, it’s probably the worst time for things like this to happen."
But Dr Virginia Tilley, a researcher at South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council, said the incident had caused much more embarrassment for Israel than South Africa.
"To have put South Africa in a position of having its national law and national sovereignty violated by Israeli intelligence operations is a considerable embarrassment to the Israeli government," she told The Media Line. "Of course these things happen but they are not supposed to be publicly thrown in the face of the host country."
"This was outrageous from the beginning," said Dr Tilley, who was featured on the Carte Blanche investigative program as one of the passengers El Al security agents had profiled. "In South Africa it is particularly not OK for anybody to be screening people based on ethnicity or race and giving them a hard time on that basis."
"They are going way beyond what would be necessary for the security of the airplane," she said. "For example I was traveling to Israel, had a series of documents with me and they copied all of them and faxed them to Israel. That has nothing to do with the safety of an airplane."
"They are conducting espionage under the guise of an airline," said Dr Tilley. "They can’t operate a foreign intelligence gathering service in South Africa, interrogating South African citizens on South African soil. That’s illegal."
"Israel’s argument is that they have unique security considerations and that as such they need unique accommodations from the host country," she said. "That argument begins to crumble when you don’t inform the host country."
"Nobody likes that," Dr Tilley said. "Most countries would find it quite irritating that the Shin Bet was operating on their soil without telling them, so this has very broad implications and could spread. Other countries will say ‘Well if South Africa is not going to let you do illegal things on their soil then we’re not going to let you do illegal things on our soil.’"
The Carte Blanche investigative program had sent a Muslim man with a hidden camera to Johannesburg airport to meet a friend near the El Al check-in desk. While the man was not flying and did not approach the check in desk, he was thoroughly interrogated by men claiming to be airport security personnel. The men turned out to be employees of the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, with diplomatic passports and guns licensed through the Israeli embassy.
"El Al does excellent security work, but they work above the law," Jonathan Garb, a former El Al security agent in South Africa told the program. "This here is secret service operating above the law here in South Africa… It’s like the CIA, or the FBI, or MI5, but they’re hiding behind the guise of the airline."
"The crazy thing is that we are profiling people racially, ethnically, even on religious grounds," he said, pointing out that the Israeli profiling system meant that black passengers endured much harsher profiling than white passengers.
"We pull the wool over everyone’s eyes," Garb added. "We do exactly what we want. The local authorities do not know what we are doing."
Mr Garb was employed by the Israeli airline as a security guard and profiler, trained in Israel and tasked with screening passengers attempting to board El Al’s direct flight between Johannesburg and Tel Aviv. After 19 years with the airline, he was fired, allegedly after he filed a complaint with the South African Department of Labor over a financial bonus he claims he was entitled to.