Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington intervened personally tonight in a bid to quell the Anglo Jewish community’s disquiet over Britain’s and Western Europe’s policy on the Middle East.
Addressing a crowded meeting of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, he sought to counter Jewish fears that Britain was undermining Israel’s security by encouraging the Palestine Liberation Organization and that it was succumbing to Arab economic pressures.
The press was excluded from the meeting put a press conference immediately afterwards as held by Carrington who told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Britain “fully understands Israel’s anxiety over security.”
He denied that the Venice declaration issued last June by the nine European Economic Community states, to which Britain subscribes, was a pro-Arab document. The declaration was “even-handed” and its basis was that the Palestinians must recognize Israel in secure borders and that “Israel must recognize the rights of the Palestinians,” Carrington said. These two conditions were “basic to any possible solution,” he noted.
Europe alone could not solve the problem and it was essential that the United States should also be involved, he added. Britain was also “utterly opposed” to suggestions that Israel should be expelled from the United Nations.
FAILS TO ALTER GENERAL FEELINGS
Commenting on his meeting with Jewish communal leaders, he admitted that he had failed to eliminate their suspicions of British policy, but added that “not everybody in the hall had disagreed.” However, Greville Janner, the Board’s President, said Carrington had failed to alter the Board’s general feelings, even though this was the first time that a British Foreign Secretary had ever addressed the leadership of the Jewish community.
Asked about the progress of the EEC’s intervention in the Middle East, Carrington said that European foreign ministers would meet again at the United Nations in New York next Tuesday
Defending the EEC’s call for the PLO to be included in negotiations, he said the PLO represented “a very large body of Palestinians’ and attributed its extremism to the Palestinians’ long frustration. Israel should look at the many examples of decolonization in the British Empire involving former terrorist bodies, he added.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
