Shlomo Argov, Israeli Ambassador to Britain, last night clashed with Eric Heffer, one of the most powerful politicans in the British Labor Party, who had savagely attacked the election campaign of Israel’s ruling Likud bloc.
The clash took place after a speech by Israel’s Labor Party leader, Shimon Peres, to a fund-raising dinner of the British Labor Friends of Israel. Peres was the key speaker but his remarks were largely overshadowed by Argov’s defense of Premier Menachem Begin against Heffer’s attack.
Heffer had harked back to the tumultuous scenes at some of Begin’s election rallies which had been prominently screened on British television. He called them frightening signs of the intolerance being encour-
aged by the present Israeli government. Argov, who had been scheduled to give merely a brief message of greetings from his government, passionately rejected Heffer’s complaints, and asked him whether he would like foreigners to judge Britain as a whole by some of the scenes which he had recently witnessed on television here.
MEETING MARKED BY POLITICAL STRAINS
Even before Argov’s intervention, last night’s dinner, at the House of Commons, had been marked by the political strains between the British and Israeli Labor Parties. Peres had started his own speech by playing down differences between Israel’s government and opposition over foreign policy and bitterly attacked the policies of Britain and its European partners.
Heffer, however, said that while he supported Israel he could not support Begin, whom he called “not very helpful, to put it in the mildest terms.”
Michael Foot, leader of the British Labor Party, also showed his distaste for the Begin government. In a message printed in the dinner brochure, he said that Labor Parties in Britain and Israel faced the same kind of domestic opponents:
“They seem wedded to a furious anti-Socialist market economy which could spread devastating results.”
In his speech, Peres scoffed at the policies by British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and his European partners and reiterated his own belief in linking the West Bank with Jordan. Expressing confidence in the Camp David peace process, he said he hoped that autonomy for the Palestinians would begin to become a reality — “at least in the Gaza Strip” — before next April’s scheduled Israeli withdrawal from the rest of Sinai.
Heffer, who spoke after Peres, said British Labor was “praying” for Peres’ party to return to power and also supported Palestinian self-determination. Thus, while Peres was in reality speaking for Begi#, Heffer was effectively speaking for Carrington. Clearly, something has changed in the once intimate links between the Labor Parties of Israel and Britain, when both were in power.
The change was made more poignant by the fact that Sir Harold Wilson, under whose long leadership that friendship flowered, presided at last night’s dinner. A weary and sick man, the former Prime Minister kept his own remarks to a bare minimum. His silence was more eloquent than words.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
