Shai Masot

Shai Masot was a senior political officer at the Israeli Embassy in London in January 2017, at which time Al Jazeera published footage of him in conversation with a British parliamentary staffer, Maria Strizzolo, discussing 'taking down' British MPs.

Shai Masot. Screen Grab taken from Middle East Eye article, published on 9 January 2017.

Shai Masot, Gilad Erdan, Lior Haimovich, and Stuart Polak at anti-BDS event in Parliament on 6 September 2016. Uploaded to Facebook by Shimrit Tsubery Heuberger on 6 Sept 16.

Shai Masot in the audience of a talk on Antisemitism at the Jewish News Conference, June 2015.

Background

Masot began his career with numerous Navy positions within the IDF before becoming a Navy Officer at COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories- who are charged with "implementing the government's policy in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and vis-a-vis the Gaza Strip” ) - a sub-division of the IDF. Before this he interned as a “Spokesman & Digital Marketer to Israeli Parliament Member” as part of a Knesset Internship). Haaretz state that Masot became the “parliamentary assistant of right-wing Likud firebrand Miri Regev, then a backbencher MK and today minister of culture and sports” before using his “political connections and short experience as a liaison officer with foreign armies to wangle a position as an AMI – a local Israeli employee of the embassy in London.”

Masot has a master’s degree in Political Communication from IDC Herzliya.

Career

After 2017, Msaot moved into digital marketing:

• March 2017 - March 2021 - ‘Imprint”
• March 2017 - Present - Masot consulting
• March 2021 - Present - Head of Special Projects, WalkMe™ Full-time In Tel Aviv

• Senior Political Officer, Embassy of Israel in the UK - Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, September 2014 – February 2017.
• Deputy Head, International Organizations Department - COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), Jan 2012 – Sep 2014.
• Naval Commander, IDF - Israel Defense Forces, Aug 2004 – Jun 2011.

Education

• Master's Degree in Political Communication, IDC Herzliya. 2010 – 2011.
• Bachelors Degree in Political Science, Global & Local Politics and Business Management, University of Haifa, 2005 - 2008.

Activities

2015

In 2015, Shai Masot attended the Annual Chanukah Party at Parliament which celebrated the first night of Chanukah. The event was hosted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Jews.

2016

In 2016, Shai Masot accompanied Gilad Erdan (then Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs) to private discussions with the Conservative Friends of Israel. Erdan’s diary seen by the Electronic Intifada reveals that he and Masot met CFI’s director James Gurd for an “unofficial lunch” at Parliament on 6 September 2016. Eitan Na’eh, then Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK, was also in attendance. According to The Electronic Intifada, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs is behind a global “black-ops” war against the Palestine solidarity movement.

'The Lobby'

Masot features as the main protagonist in Al Jazeera’s ‘The Lobby’. He was filmed talking about “taking down” British government officials which are critical of Israel governmental policy - particularly Israeli settlements. Masot described himself as a “Political Officer” at the Embassy - the undercover documentary follows Masot as he attempts to set a Young Labour Friends of Israel group with the undercover reporter. After the revelations, an Israeli spokesperson said that Masot had been “working for the Ministry for Strategic Affairs, a controversial ministry tasked with countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.” This contradicted the Embassy’s suggestion that he had been a “Junior Member" of staff.

The Al Jazeera documentary showed Masot discussing how he set up a number of politically affiliated organisations in the UK with a Young LFI group his next project. According to the Guardian, “a former Tory government minister also called for an inquiry into the Israeli embassy’s links with two organisations, Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).”

After the fiasco, Masot was “sent back to Israel in disgrace.”

While the Embassy is presented as being integral to the establishment of many organisations, including the Young LFI, Masot is filmed telling the Al Jazeera reporter not to tell people that the Embassy is involved: “LFI is an independent organisation. No one likes that someone is managing his organisation. That really is the first rule in politics.” In other recordings, Masot says that “it’s good to leave those [politically affiliated] organisations independent. But we [the Embassy] help them, actually.”

Masot was against Corbyn’s leadership bid, calling him a “crazy leader.” The Guardian suggested that the establishment of Young LFI and others groups attempted to “to influence Labour affairs.” He explains who he took members of the Fabian Society to Israel and how some of them “are against Corbyn.”

While an anonymous former minister told the Mail on Sunday that “British foreign policy is in hock to Israeli influence at the heart of our politics, and those in authority have ignored what is going on.” “For years the CFI and LFI have worked with – even for – the Israeli embassy to promote Israeli policy and thwart UK government policy and the actions of ministers who try to defend Palestinian rights.”

The documentary also reported that Conservative peer Sir Alan Duncan was a target of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Deputy Foreign Minister at the time of the investigation, Duncan was odds-on to replace Boris Johnson as Foreign Minister should he have been sacked. Duncan had been an arch-critique of settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

In his memoir, In the Thick of It: The Private Diaries of a Minister, Duncan describes the days before the release of Al Jazeera’s ‘The Lobby’. When the news that Shai Masot had been caught plotting to “bring down” MPs (including Duncan) broke, then Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev called Duncan to explain. According to Duncan, Regev claimed that Masot was “a local hire” and was only employed in a “junior capacity” who didn’t have “diplomatic status.” Similar phraseology was used by the Embassy of Israel in the official statement on the Masot affair: “...the comments were made by a junior embassy employee who is not an Israeli diplomat, and who will be ending his term of employment with the embassy shortly,” a spokesman said in a statement.

Duncan disagrees, however. He stated that Masot “is a first or secondary secretary, a member of military intelligence employed specifically as a parliamentary and undercover propagandist.” According to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Duncan, Masot was ‘on the official diplomatic list, albeit at a low level, (but) is immune from prosecution and is described as an official "political officer"’. Duncan adds that Regev is telling a “white lie” about Masot; “what on earth is the point of Regev stating something so blatantly untrue, and about which we both hold the facts?” Duncan adds that FCO 'Head of Comms' Simon McGee found a photo of Shai Masot in Diplomat Magazine where "he is with other diplomats, and is listed as an equivalent." The photos that McGee may have come across are shown in the following inserts:

Masot is seen in photos 1 and 2 (from Diplomat Magazine November 2016 issue, page 57

Description of the photos on page 57 in Diplomat Magazine November 2016 issue - Masot's name appears in no. 2

Follow-up photo in the Jan 2017 edition of Diplomat (page 13), showing Masot being elected to the Young Diplomats Committee

The photos show Shai Masot at the annual Young Diplomat in London (YDL) General Meeting on 25 October 2016 at Hyatt Regency London. At the event, Masot was elected to the YDL committee for 2017.

An investigation by former diplomat Craig Murray revealed that Shai was not included on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Diplomatic List – a document that presents all accredited diplomats in the UK. Murray states that the activities that Shai Masot took part in (mainly “meetings with politicians, including giving briefings in parliament and at party conferences”) would “accord with a rank around First Secretary to Counsellor.”

Murray refutes the Embassy’s claim that Masot was a “junior member of staff” because the Embassy does not give visas to junior members of staff “except in very specific job categories which Masot plainly does not meet.” Murray adds that "It is very plain that the work he was doing as “Senior Political Officer” would equate normally to senior diplomatic rank."

Furthermore, in a Commons debate on 10 January 2017, then-Foreign Minister, Boris Johnson was asked by Alex Salmond why Mr Masot had not been “booted out of the country.” Johnson replies as follows - and suggests that Masot did have diplomatic status:

 “The right hon. Gentleman seems, alas, to have been failing to pay attention to the salient point, which is that the Israeli diplomat in question is no longer doing his job in London—whatever his job is, he is no longer doing it in this city. The Israeli ambassador has made a full apology for the matter and I am happy to consider it closed.” 

• Israeli spy thought to be connected to the MSA.

In a House of Commons debate on 10 January 2017, Boris Johnson said that Masot’s “cover can be said to have been well and truly blown (“Whatever that person [Masot] might exactly have been doing here”) and added that “I think we should consider the matter closed.” Around the same time, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs during the period, tweeted that, “Shai Masot does not work in my ministry. My ministry has no employees abroad. There is no connection to my ministry.” Confusingly, The Electronic Intifada also report that an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman reportedly told Middle East Eye that “Masot resigned three days ago and I want to emphasize that Masot will not have any contact with the Ministry for Strategic Affairs in the near future.”

Contact

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shai-masot/
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/shai.masot
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/ShaiMasot