Diplomatic Conflict over Syrian Jews

A diplomatic row has blown up between the United Kingdom and Syria over what the Syrians call “British interference in the internal affairs of Syria.” The British Committee for Jews in Arab Lands, a general and not a Jewish body, comprising a number of members of Parliament, and the House of Lords, both Jews and non-Jews, requested the government, on purely humanitarian grounds to intervene with the Syrian government in order to alleviate the suffering of Syrian Jews.

When the British Ambassador in Damascus sent a report repeating the official Syrian version, that everything is all right with the Jews of Syria, members of Parliament told the Foreign Secretary that it was not the business of the British Ambassador to cover up the persecution of innocent people and to act as an apologist for the Syrians.

Last week the British Ambassador to Damascus David Roberts, was told by the Syrians that Britain was now biased in favor of Israel and against Syria, and that the British authorities had acted as if they had believed the press reports about the ill-treatment of Syrian Jews. He was also told that this kind of attitude “could endanger relations between Britain and Syria, and also Britain and the rest of the Arab world.”

The British kept quiet about the Syrian warning, but the Syrians made it public, even giving part of the interview chapter and verse. The Foreign Office here told the JTA, “We have drawn the attention of Syria to the concern felt by people in Britain over the position of the Jewish community in Syria, although we recognize that we have no locus standi on their behalf. We have done this at our own initiative, and not at the request of Israel or any other country. We have done it in a discreet fashion deliberately, and we have not said anything about it in public.”