Mounting Alarm Among British Jews over Middle East Policies Pursued by Britain and Europe

The Anglo-Jewish community’s mounting alarm at Britain’s and Europe’s Middle East policy was brought vividly home to the government this morning when Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Office Minister of State, faced on hour-and-a-half of hostile questioning by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Hurd was making the latest in a series of attempts to convince Anglo Jewry that neither Britain nor Europe were betraying Israel’s security interests by gestures toward the Palestine Liberation Organization or by talking of Palestinian self-determination. He will be followed a week later by lord Carrington, the Foreign Secretary who will address another meeting of Board leaders.

In addition to his assurance of concern for Israel’s security, Hurd also claimed that there was growing realization in Britain, the U.S. and Europe, of the importance of recognizing “the legitimate right of the Palestinian people.” But, judging by his reception, he utterly failed to shake the Jewish community’s solidarity with Israel. On the contrary, speaker after speaker testified to the community’s deep pride in and love for the Jewish State.

Arya Handler, chairman of the Board’s Eretz Israel Committee, said the community adhered to its deep belief that the overriding interests of Britain and Israel were identical and that the present arguments between them were a passing aberration. Greville Janner, the opposition Labor MP who is the Board’s president, said that Anglo-Jewry “sometimes wonders if the nine (European Economic Community members) are selling Israel up a river of oil.”

VIEW OF BRITISH OFFICIAL

For his part, Hurd defended the declaration adopted last month in Venice at the summit meeting of the nine European Economic Community (EEC) heads of government which had called for the PLO to be associated with Middle East peace negotiations. On the PLO, Hurd denied that the British government had ever described it as a “moderate organization.” But he maintained that it contained moderate elements which should be encouraged to come to the negotiation table.

On Jewish settlements, he said “the present Israeli policy of settlements is bound to be an obstacle to the creation of confidence in the area and thus to peace. ” On Jerusalem, he denied that Britain wanted it to be redivided, but a political settlement had to cover its 100,000 Arab inhabitants. “We don’t accept the annexation of East Jerusalem by the Israeli State, ” he added.

EEC’S MIDEAST INITIATIVE DENOUNCED

Several days earlier, Peter Shore, foreign affairs spokesman, for the Labor Party, told a meeting of Poale Zion that the EEC’s Mideast initiative was “ill-timed, ill-conceived, opportunistic and irresponsible. “He said Britain should not have signed the Venice declaration and he denied the British Prime Minister’s claim that the declaration supplemented the Camp David peace process.

Nevertheless, Shore had some blunt criticism of Israel. “The world will not accept that Israel has any right, divine or historic, to the Biblical lands of Judaea and Samaria. Nor will it accept that one people has the right to rule another against their will, ” he said.

“Limited strategic settlements may be accepted as part of a security system. Beyond that, it is one thing to freely negotiate Jewish settlements with an elected and fully autonomous West Bank regime and another to impose such settlements in occupied lands under the protection of a military administration. ” Such acts, he added, were seen by the outside world as provocative and dangerous.

Another speaker at the meeting warned that EEC policy was likely to become even more pro-Arab in the future. Eric Moonman, a former Labor MP and until recently chairman at the British Zionist Federation, said that the development at the European Parliament enabled Israel’s enemies to pool their resources more effectively than before and to influence national parliaments as well.

However, Anglo-Israeli relations had been made even worse than they needed to be by the “style” of the Israeli government and Premier Menachem Begin’s “unhelpful” remarks about Britain’s policies 30 years ago, Moonman said.