Behind the Headlines Tories Face Middle East Dilemmas

The contradictions of Britain’s Middle East policy are likely to be highlighted under the new Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.

Unlike the Labor Party, the Conservatives have no deep sentimental attachment to Israel and will be more hard nosed in pursuing Britain’s national interests and her traditional links with the Arab world. On the other hand, the Conservatives favor a tougher line against terrorism and may be prepared to bracket the Palestine Liberation Organization with the hated terrorists in Northern Ireland.

Lord Carrington, the new Foreign Secretary, shares a similar outlook to the last Conservative who held the post, Sir Alec Douglas Home (now Lord Home). In a famous speech in Harrogate in 1970. Home said Israel should hand back all of Sinai and almost all the West Bank in exchange for peace. He also said the Palestine Arabs should be enabled to express their political aspirations.

In the new House of Commons, foreign policy will be explained by Sir lan Gilmour, a strong pro-Arab sympathizer, who has joined the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal.

On the other hand, both Mrs. Thatcher and William Whitelaw, the Home Secretary and Deputy Premier, are well disposed to Israel. Mrs. Thatcher was for many years the head of an Anglo-Israel friendship group in her Finchley, London, constituency which has a sizeable Jewish population. Whitelaw visited Israel early this year and is on record as saying Israel should keep the Golan Heights.

Yet both of them were members of the last Conservative government, under Edward Heath, which at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War blocked a shipment of ammunition bound for Israel. Since then, a large pro-Israeli lobby has sprung up in the Conservative Party which claims more Parliamentary members than its much older Labor Party counterpart.

Any changes in Middle East policy are likely to occur in the context of broader changes of foreign policy. The Conservatives are more deeply committed to membership of the European Economic Community than was Labor and will probably lay greater stress on an independent European foreign policy, while damping down their support of the United States in the Middle East and elsewhere.

On a personal level, though, Mrs. Thatcher may find she has more in common with Israel’ first non-Socialist Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who, like her, ended a long entrenched Labor Party reign. Like Begin, Mrs. Thatcher personally favors the execution of terrorist murderers and preaches traditional family virtues.

Nearly all her Cabinet ministers are drawn from the English upper classes and only one, Sir Keith Joseph, is Jewish. Jewish ministers outside the Cabinet include Sally Oppenheim, while others tipped for junior posts include Leon Brittan and Nigel Lawson.

Among leading supporters of Israel who lost their seats in the election are John Pardoe and Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal’s deputy leader and former leader, respectively, and Labor M###ric Moonman, chairman of the British Zionist Federation.