By David Harrison and Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem, Telegraph UK
Shimon Peres said England was “deeply pro-Arab … and anti-Israeli”, adding: “They always worked against us.”
He added: “There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary.”
His remarks, made in an interview on a Jewish website, provoked anger from senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had “got it wrong”.
But other groups backed the former Israeli prime minister and said the number of anti-semitic incidents had risen dramatically in the UK in recent years.
The controversy follows the furore last week over David Cameron’s remark that Gaza was a “prison camp”, as he urged Israel to allow aid and people to move freely in and out of the Palestinian territory.
Mr Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is three years into his seven-year term as president and was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen in 2008, said that England’s attitude towards Jews was Israel’s “next big problem”.
“There are several million Muslim voters, and for many members of parliament, that’s the difference between getting elected and not getting elected,” he said.
“And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment.
“They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 UN partition resolution … They maintained an arms embargo against us in the 1950s … They always worked against us. They think the Arabs are the underdogs.”
By contrast, relations with Germany, France and Italy were “pretty good”, he added.
He made the comments in an interview with the historian Professor Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev published last week in Tablet, a Jewish news website.
The wide-ranging interview covered Mr Peres’ role as one of Israel’s longest-serving political leaders – an MP for 48 years, twice prime minister, and holder of other ministerial posts over the decades. He is firmly on the Israeli Left.
He was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 jointly with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for his part as foreign minister in the peace talks which produced the landmark Oslo Accords.
But following his comments, James Clappison, the Conservative MP for Hertsmere and vice-chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel, said: “Mr Peres has got this wrong.
“There are pro- and anti-Israel views in all European countries. Things are certainly no worse, as far as Israel is concerned, in this country than other European countries.”
The MP added that he could “understand the frustration” that people in Israel felt with “certain elements of the British broadcast media” which present an unbalanced view of Israel.
He said: “I can understand Mr Peres’ concerns, but I don’t recognise what he is saying about England.”
Yet in Israel, Mr Peres is far from alone in holding such views, which have gained a wider following, particularly on the Right, since the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat over accusations that Mossad sent agents using British passports to assassinate a Hamas commander in Dubai.
Aryeh Eldad, a right-wing member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, accused Britain of working against Israeli interests for decades – ever since it “betrayed” its promises to build a Jewish homeland when it governed Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.
“Both governments from the right and the left prefer Arab interests over Israeli interests,” said Mr Eldad, whose father Israel was a leading figure in the Stern Gang, the most radical of the Jewish terror groups that fought British mandatory rule.
“The other layer is an ongoing, subtle form of anti-semitism. It is not as overt as it was in Germany, it is a quiet, polite form.”
Some leading Jewish commentators in Britain disagreed. Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, minister of Maidenhead synagogue and a writer and broadcaster, said: “I am surprised at Peres. It is a sweeping statement that is far too one-sided.
“Britain has supported both Israel and Arab causes at different periods over the last 50 years. There are elements of anti-semitism but it is not endemic to British society.
“The tolerance and pluralism here make Britain one of the best countries in the world in which to live.”
Mr Peres found support, however, from other pro-Israeli groups. Jacob Vince, the director of Christian Friends of Israel, said there was anti-semitism in the UK although many people had a positive view of Israel but were unwilling to express it publicly.
Mr Vince said it was “difficult to see how many MPs would not be influenced by the number of Muslim voters in their constituencies”.
The Government was not treating Arabs as the underdogs but rather was trying to appease them, he said. “The question is how well they understand those with whom they are seeking conciliation.”
Mr Peres is “measured and moderate,” he added.
He said: “His comments have serious connotations and I am sure would not be said lightly.”
One Israeli politician expressed disbelief that the doveish Mr Peres had launched such a broadside against the British.
Benny Begin, a cabinet minister whose father Menachem was prime minister and before that leader of Irgun, the group that killed 91 people in an attack on Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in 1946, said: “Peres? I simply can’t believe he said that.”
The latest figures show that the number of anti-semitic incidents in Britain is rising, according to the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity set up in 1984 to monitor such incidents.
The situation in Britain had worsened “significantly” in the past decade, a spokesman said.
In 2009 there were 924 anti-semitic incidents, the highest figure since CST began keeping records in 1984, and 55 per cent higher than the previous record in 2006.
The figures include reports, accepted only when backed by evidence, of physical assaults, verbal abuse and racist graffiti.
The monthly figure has soared from 10-20 incidents in the 1990s to 40-50 now.
Last year nearly half of the 924 anti-semitic race attacks recorded by the CST showed a political motivation, with 66 per cent of those including some reference to Israel and the Middle East.
A 2009 report by the US-based Anti-Defamation League found one in five Britons admitted Israel influences their opinion of British Jews, and the majority of those said that they felt “worse” about Jews than they used to. It found, however, that Britain was less anti-semitic than other European countries.
The whole stinking family looks like the result from incestuous inbreeding.
Spock ears don’t lie!
That won’t be necessary.
A- Balfour Declaration? You Jest, first of all it’s not worth the paper it’s written on and secondly Weizmann bought it by giving the British TNT. Stupid Weizmann could have gotten so much more from the stupid Brits, Like a binding commitment at the very least. He the dumb Jew was snookered by the dumb Brits. So much for the quality of Jewish Leadership. They have a propensity for believing perfidious antisemitic Christians.
B the Jews with or without Balfour would have eventually Taken back our country from all occupiers Christian and Muslim It’s time had come.
C It was 7000 crazy Jews who drove the Fucking Nazi Brits out of our country. Can you imagine they didn’t want to leave even with a Balfour Declaration.
My wish is for the Muslims to take over Britain put the Queen in a bag and make her serve any Muslim that will have her. Then we nuke the shitty little Island off the face of the earth.
Without the British there would be a few million more Jews in the world.
Shimon Peres came to power over Rabin’s dead body. Never forget it. The British-Israelites relationship with Jews has been far from perfect, as prophesied between Joseph and Judah, but if it weren’t for the British there would have been no Balfour Declaration.
Kendraa=Sybil : The multiple award-winning made-for-TV movie Sybil was based on the book by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Sally Field won an Emmy for her portrayal of the title character, a substitute teacher in New York who has developed multiple personality disorder. As a coping mechanism to deal with the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, Hattie (Martine Bartlett), Sybil created separate personalities: aggressive Peggy Lou, suicidal Mary, baby Sybil Ann, and several others. Joanne Woodward plays Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, the psychologist who diagnoses Sybil’s condition and helps her to get over it. William Prince and Jane Hoffman play her father and stepmother, while Brad Davis appears as her would-be boyfriend Richard.
Martel is hardly a liberal.
Which is why we need to drill here in the USA and also TAKE control of the arabs oil. This is something that should have been done decades ago in response to arab countries nationalizing their oil industries.
Britain’s New Foreign Undersecretary’s Wife Is a PLO Official
Now that’s an interesting revelation.
(INN) Britain has recently appointed a new Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The appointee, Simon Fraser, will take office in late August.
Fraser’s appointment may cause concern in Israel. According to the Telegraph, Fraser left an earlier post, working as private secretary to former Foreign Office minister William Waldegrave, in order to marry an official from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
Fraser resigned in 1990 after becoming involved with Shireen, the woman who eventually became his wife. The two met at a time when the organization still openly supported terrorism against Israelis, and was itself considered a terrorist group by Israel and the United States.
A former colleague of Fraser’s confirmed to the Telegraph that Fraser had stepped down due to his relationship, saying, “Simon considered his position and..
#6 kendraa,
I have news for you: I didn’t send you any emails. Someone seems to be “at it”; using my name (heaven knows why).
Martel: I am active with the Ayn Rand Institute in the Manhatten area.
Time for you to expand your horizons,open your mind and learn a few new things. Too many “alter Kockers” on this site.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_index
Martel: Cease with your romantic liberal notions that somehow you can make this cruel hard nosed world into a utopia of justice and virtue. Prejudice will continue as it always has and economic self interest will be the number one consideration no matter what. Today Oil is King and the Arabs have the oil.
Read up on Ayn Rand’s theories and perhaps you might just understand a little better what this world is all about.
Martel: The name is kendraa, buster, and it is as real as my boobs. Which is a lot more than I can say for your moniker and your microscopic sized equipment.
Hymie
There was no need for oil in England during the eight centuries the Jews were systematically persecuted, extorted from, massacred and expelled.
Antisemitism is older than the Plague and will long outlive the use of fuel made from fossils — including you.
Martel: Expecting Britain or any other European nation to opt for Israel as an alternative to the need for oil is a pipe dream, a delusion.
end of argument. let us move on to the next item on the agenda.
keelie: with regard to your Email, note the Republican party does not constitute an authentic conservative movement. It matters little who happens to be at the helm, Palin or whomever, the prime desire will always be to be reelected. With that motive in mind, once elected it will turn inevitably to the center or worse center left. Bush, touted to be a true conservative created record deficits, record levels of debt and massive government involvment in the private sector. That is a prime example of a MAJOR BETRAYAL OF any and all conservative principles.
For true conservativism only a Rand influenced libertarian objectivist movement is the only option. Otherwise the pernicious move-on org. people will continue to prevail, as is the case at present.
Rand Paul for the next U.S. president.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTf6NK0wsiA&feature=related
I met Rabbi Romain in 2000 when I was exploring the possibility of joining a shul near Maidenhead. He came to my home and we had a nice chat on a host of topics including politics and antisemitism which I suggested was on the rise. He invited me to a social at the synagogue where he asked me to share my thoughts on antisemitism with the congregation and asked for my view on how it might affect the US presidential elections. He didn’t get it; while I was concerned with antisemitism of the medieval blood libel variety and related anti-Zionism in the UK and Europe, he was entirely focused on country club antisemitism in the US which he worried would hurt the Gore/Lieberman ticket!
His comments above reflect the fact that ten years on, he still doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see the connection between rabid anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism in Britain and he’s wrong on the historical facts: the UK hasn’t supported Israel since the early 20s.
Alternatively, he has a galut mentality and doesn’t want to rock the boat in the land of his “hosts” who have been good enough to bestow an MBE on him.
The stinking Brits haven’t gotten over that a few thousand dedicated, brave and zealous Jews drove the creme of the British empire out of the Land Of Israel in only a few short years. Just goes to show what a few good men and women can do. They nailed the final nail in the British empire’s coffin. 🙂
Calling the Stern Gang and other groups fighting for Israeli independence terror groups, just underlines the truth of Peres’ claims about England.
What I found most interesting is not that Peres said what he said but that the ensuing debate was whether England was any more anti-Semitic than any other European country. I would say less than a very few and more than most.
I wouldn’t cry if all of Europe succumbs to Islam or even better somebody puts them out of their misery and nukes them to hell.
Such candour from Peres is noteworthy and newsworthy.
Clappison may be right by this statement. Saying however, that Britain is no more anti-semitism/anti-Israel then the rest of continental Europe does not make the anti-semitism and anti-Israel attitudes that are felt, expressed and acted on by a seeming increasing number of British citizens, from Government, media, institutions and society as a whole any less disturbing to Jews and Israel.