Israel accused of planting evidence against Iran

Israel's interception yesterday of a massive arms cache purportedly destined for Hezbollah militants has, inevitably, lit the touch-paper for yet another furious row between Middle Eastern leaders.

Israeli military and political chiefs are adamant that the hundreds of tons of weapons discovered on board the Antigua-flagged ship, the Francop (above), had been sent by Iran for use by Hezbollah against Israeli targets. However, officials in Syria and Iran angrily denied the claims, branding the Israeli navy 'pirates' and asserting that the vessel was merely carrying commercial goods between the two countries.

That Iran views Hezbollah and Hamas as proxies in their conflict with Israel is neither a secret nor a far-fetched conspiracy theory. Yet in certain circles Israel has already been accused of staging the entire affair, in what would be an incredibly audacious and ambitious propaganda exercise.

Critics of Israel have routinely disputed previous similar events - including the confiscation of a vast weapons stockpile on the Karine-A ship in 2002 ­ and their suspicions were given some credence by Israel's failure to provide cast-iron proof for their claims that the Karine-A belonged to the Palestinian Authority.

This year has seen the Israeli military involved in other incidents of operating far beyond the state's borders, including the IDF's striking of a weapons convoy in Sudan, almost 1,000 miles from Israeli territory, in order to prevent the missiles being transferred to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In August, an incident involving an attack of piracy on a Russian vessel, the Arctic Sea, was hastily-covered up by Russian officials, whose silence gave further credence to claims that Mossad - Israel¹s secret service - had been behind the hijacking, and that the ship had been carrying weapons destined for Iran.

The timing of the latest raid may seem suspicious to those who believe that a media war is being waged to convince sceptics of the need to defang Iran's nuclear capabilities, and that Israel would have no qualms about planting evidence in order to fit up the Iranian leadership.

Yet the fact remains that Iran's sabre-rattling President Ahmadinejad has a long track record of threatening Israel and the West with fire and brimstone, and such a transfer of arms seems entirely in line with his belligerent tactics.

From an Israeli perspective, to dismiss the incident as simply an elaborate set-up is to dangerously overlook Iran's stated intentions, and is not something Israel can afford to do in the interests of protecting its citizens from harm.