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Fury as Dalyell attacks Blair's 'Jewish cabal'
By Colin Brown and Chris Hastings
TAM DALYELL, the Father of the House [Senior member of the British House of Commons in Parliament], sparked outrage last night by accusing the Prime Minister of "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers".
In
an interview with Vanity Fair, the Left-wing Labour MP named
Lord Levy, Tony Blair's personal envoy on the Middle
East, Peter Mandelson, whose father was Jewish, and Jack
Straw, the Foreign Secretary (far right, with unidentified
friend), who has Jewish ancestry, as three of the leading figures
who had influenced Mr. Blair's policies on the Middle East.
Mr. Dalyell, the MP [Member of Parliament] for Linlithgow, told The Telegraph: "I am fully aware that one is treading on cut glass on this issue and no one wants to be accused of anti-Semitism but, if it is a question of launching an assault on Syria or Iran . . . then one has to be candid."
He added: "I am not going to be labelled anti-Semitic. My children worked on a kibbutz. But the time has come for candour."
The Prime Minister, Mr. Dalyell claimed, was also indirectly influenced by Jewish people in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, and Ari Fleischer, the President's press secretary.
"They very much have captured the ear of the President of the United States. I said [to Vanity Fair] I thought that Blair was very sympathetic to them. I cannot understand why," Mr Dalyell said.
MR DALYELL'S claim caused fury last night. Mr Mandelson said: "Apart from the fact that I am not actually Jewish, I wear my father's parentage with pride. As for Tam, he is as incorrigible as ever."
Lord Janner, a Labour peer and the chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust (right), said: "I think these comments are sad and unfounded. Tony Blair is his own man. He will follow advice if he considers it correct and not otherwise. He has been a good friend of the Jewish people and the Jewish state."
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead Synagogue and a spokesman for Britain's Reform Synagogues, said: "Tam Dalyell is not being candid but misguided. Concerning Iraq it was crystal clear that Tony Blair was not swayed by popularity or anyone else but by his own deep convictions. It is also obvious that the majority of President Bush's circle (see below) are Christian Evangelicals rather than Jews."
Ned Temko, the American-born editor of the Jewish Chronicle, said: "I just think these sort of comments are offensive and are a profound misunderstanding of the way foreign policy is made in the United States or here."
A spokesman for Lord Levy said he was not available for comment. A spokesman for the Foreign Secretary said: "If these reports are accurate, these remarks are too unworthy to be worth a comment."
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British Author David Irving comments: LORD Janner, the former Greville Janner, is a
recent president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
He has worked for over fifteen years to pressure publishers
like Macmillan Ltd to violate their contracts to publish my
works of history; he was spotted in the High Court in London
on several occasions during the £6 million Lipstadt
libel trial, and he sat next to the Israeli Ambassador and
his armed security guards and other VIPs in the courtroom on
the day that Mr Justice Gray read out his perverse
judgment against me in my action against Lipstadt. |
