JERUSALEM: Bahrain’s King Hamad boasted of his ties with Israel’s intelligence services and told his government to stop referring to the Jewish state as the “Zionist enemy,” a leaked US cable from 2005 showed. The cable, which was given exclusively to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, was written after talks between the king and Washington’s ambassador to Bahrain, William Monroe, in February of that year.

“He revealed that Bahrain already has contacts with Israel at the intelligence/security level (i.e. with Mossad) and indicated that Bahrain will be willing to move forward in other areas,” Monroe wrote, referring to Israel’s spy agency.

The cable also indicated King Hamad had ordered his public information minister to stop referring to Israel as the “Zionist entity” or “enemy” in official statements, Haaretz quoted the cable as saying.

But the king reportedly baulked at the idea of establishing trade ties with Israel, saying it would have to wait until the establishment of a Palestinian state, it said.

The cable was leaked as the Gulf kingdom struggles with a wave of protests against the ruling Al-Khalifa dynasty.—AFP