British Government Criticized for Advocating Principle of Big Four Guarantees

A prominent Israeli military commentator sharply criticized the British government here last night for advocating the principle of Big Power guarantees for Israel in lieu of territorial security. Maj. Gen, Chaim Herzog, who served as the first Israeli military governor of the West Bank in 1967, delivered the keynote address at the 70th annual conference of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, attended by 750 delegates and a large number of guests. “We are offered guarantees but we have learned of their uselessness by bitter experience,” declared Gen. Herzog who was born in Ireland. “British spokesman are enthusiastically in favor of such guarantees being accepted by Israel but for the British to urge others to put their trust in guarantees is sheer hypocrisy,” he said. Herzog recalled that the American and British navies stood by when Egypt declared its blockade of the Straits of Tiran in 1967. He also recalled that despite close relations between Britain and Jordan, the British government was quick to announce that it would not interfere when Jordan faced a life-and-death crisis during last September’s civil war with the Palestinian guerrillas. “So now British spokesmen step forward and recommend that we accept international guarantees,” Herzog said. Moshe Shamir, head of the Jewish Agency’s immigration department in Britain, reported that there were now 80,000 British Jews in Israel. He said there was marked progress in emigration from Britain.