Britain in Row with Saudi Arabia

While the British Foreign Office is attempting to play down Britain’s latest row with Saudi Arabia, leading London newspapers are just as intent on playing it up.

Editorials in The Times, Financial Times and Guardian unanimously blame Britain for the row following Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to receive PLO representative Farouk Kaddoumi as part of an Arab League delegation. The Saudis have retaliated by cancelling a visit by British Foreign Secretary Francis Pym.

“What is required is not softness on principle but greater clarity, consistency and seriousness in applying our principles to the Palestinian issue,” says The Times today.

The Financial Times, alleging confusion in Britain’s attitude to the PLO, says that “quite apart from the possible damage to trade relations, it is regrettable that a cooling in relations (with Saudi Arabia) should take place just as Britain and the more moderate members of the Arab world appeared to be moving closer towards a common approach to a Middle East peace settlement.”

The Guardian suggests that the Foreign Office and Downing Street “are even now constructing the form of words which will allow Mr. Kaddoumi or one of his colleagues both to be received and not deflect Britain from giving its full support to the Palestinian people, whether or not represented by the PLO, in what may be their last chance of securing a home …”

THATCHER PRAISED BY JEWISH LEADER

But Mrs. Thatcher’s refusal to meet a PLO representative won warm praise from the Anglo-Jewish community’s representative body. Arye Handler, chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, urged the Prime Minister to remain firm in her resolve “and resist odious Arab threats.”

Handler took issue with Denis Healy, foreign affairs spokesman of the opposition Labor Party, who had earlier criticized Mrs. Thatcher. Healy’s criticism, Handler said, would not win the Labor Party any support from those, inside and outside the Jewish community, who wished to see a “balanced” British position on the Middle East.

The Foreign Office, meanwhile, is trying to lower tensions by suggesting that Pym’s Saudi visit has not been cancelled but merely postponed. The question of the Arab League mission to London is still the subject of confidential talks between Britain and its leader, Morocco’s King Hassan, the foreign Office says.

ARABS ANGERED BY BRITISH ACTION

But this may not prevent the anti-British mood from spreading to other parts of the Arab world. Qatar has reportedly asked to be excluded from Pym’s itinerary and Algeria has cancelled a trip to London by trade officials.

The strength of Saudi feeling was evident in an emotional letter to The Times by Prince Bandar Ben Abdullah, the Saudi Assistant Deputy Minister of the Interior, advising fellow Arabs “to emulate the Saudi way, namely, his the Westerners where it hurts, in their pockets, for they have no hearts.”

Among the epithets which the Prince levelled at Britain were that it was “foolhardy in humiliating the Arabs” and that “the average full-blooded Arab” was “nauseated by British hypocrisy.” He called Britain merely “an appendage” of the United States and “almost irrelevant” in the Middle East. “The Arabs,” he added, “are at a loss to explain the blind, pigheaded and destructive support that the Zionists receive from the Europeans and Americans except on the basis of race prejudice.”