Foreign Office concern at Thatcher Jewish links
This is LONDON
29/12/05
Foreign Office officials were so concerned about Margaret Thatcher's pro-Israeli sympathies when she became Tory leader they wanted her to break off links with local Jewish groups, according to newly-released official papers.
Files released to the National Archives in Kew, west London, under the 30 year rule reveal that diplomats feared she would be seen by Arab countries as a "prisoner of the Zionists".
One official even suggested that she should give up her Finchley parliamentary seat in north London - with its large Jewish community - for somewhere more palatable to Arab opinion.
The issue of Thatcher's membership of groups such as the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley and Conservative Friends of Israel was raised during a visit by shadow foreign secretary Lord Carrington to Jordan in 1975.
"He asked the ambassador's advice on this and was assured that such a connection, which would inevitably do much harm in the Arab world, should if at all practicable be severed," noted Michael Tait, an official in the British embassy.
"Carrington agreed that Mrs Thatcher might most painlessly and with some justification get herself off the hook by resigning from all constituency obligations of this sort on the grounds of the rather wider obligations she has now to assume.
"Such a stratagem might resolve the problem in Finchley but if Mrs Thatcher is indeed a prime mover in a wider parliamentary grouping of pro-Israeli MPs then the difficulty would be trickier to bypass.
"While we as Government and not opposition officials may have no particular brief on Mrs Thatcher's behalf it is presumably in the national interest to do what we can to counter Arab fears and suspicions that the leader of HM opposition is already a prisoner of the Zionists."
The Foreign Office in London was sympathetic, noting Conservative Central Office was "well aware of the problems which these links might pose".
One official added however: "We do not think there is anything we can, or should, do about Mrs Thatcher's membership of pro-Israeli organisations."
29/12/05
Foreign Office officials were so concerned about Margaret Thatcher's pro-Israeli sympathies when she became Tory leader they wanted her to break off links with local Jewish groups, according to newly-released official papers.
Files released to the National Archives in Kew, west London, under the 30 year rule reveal that diplomats feared she would be seen by Arab countries as a "prisoner of the Zionists".
One official even suggested that she should give up her Finchley parliamentary seat in north London - with its large Jewish community - for somewhere more palatable to Arab opinion.
The issue of Thatcher's membership of groups such as the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley and Conservative Friends of Israel was raised during a visit by shadow foreign secretary Lord Carrington to Jordan in 1975.
"He asked the ambassador's advice on this and was assured that such a connection, which would inevitably do much harm in the Arab world, should if at all practicable be severed," noted Michael Tait, an official in the British embassy.
"Carrington agreed that Mrs Thatcher might most painlessly and with some justification get herself off the hook by resigning from all constituency obligations of this sort on the grounds of the rather wider obligations she has now to assume.
"Such a stratagem might resolve the problem in Finchley but if Mrs Thatcher is indeed a prime mover in a wider parliamentary grouping of pro-Israeli MPs then the difficulty would be trickier to bypass.
"While we as Government and not opposition officials may have no particular brief on Mrs Thatcher's behalf it is presumably in the national interest to do what we can to counter Arab fears and suspicions that the leader of HM opposition is already a prisoner of the Zionists."
The Foreign Office in London was sympathetic, noting Conservative Central Office was "well aware of the problems which these links might pose".
One official added however: "We do not think there is anything we can, or should, do about Mrs Thatcher's membership of pro-Israeli organisations."
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 11:46 AM
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