Next Plo-israeli Contacts May Take Place in Scotland

The Jewish Echo

The local Peace Now group here is organizing the latest in an international series of dialogues on the Middle East peace process to include both Israeli Knesset members and representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In a letter to The Jewish Echo, to be published in its Friday edition, the Glasgow Friends of Peace Now announce that they are arranging a meeting to be addressed by a London representative of the PLO.

Sharing the platform will be “a member or members of the Knesset — someone like Dedi Zucker or Shulamit Aloni, or someone else from the Citizens Rights Movement,” Tony Tankel, who signed the letter, told the Echo. He hinted that the speaker could be a member of Israel’s Labor Party.

If it comes off, the Glasgow meeting will be the latest in a series of contacts Israeli Knesset members have had with PLO officials in recent weeks. Similar exchanges took place in New York, London, Amsterdam and Lausanne, Switzerland.

While Israeli nationals are forbidden by law from having contact with the PLO, Knesset members have immunity from prosecution.

The Glasgow Friends of Peace Now has a wide measure of local support here. Among its members are Mark Goldberg, who is coordinator of Glasgow’s Project Renewal program in Dimona, Israel; Nigel Allon, chairman of the Glasgow Zionist Organization; and Tankel, who is secretary of that organization.

The Glasgow Zionist Organization caused an uproar last September, when it published an advertisement in the Jewish Echo, shortly before the Israeli Knesset elections, urging Israel to “speak to the PLO now!”