Israeli envoy lashes out at British Left Former peace negotiator accuses politicians and media of anti-Semitism

Jason Burke, chief reporter
Sunday April 4, 2004
The Observer and The Guardian

The comments are likely to spark new controversy after a week in which the Israeli government accused British media based in Jerusalem of anti-Semitism and the European Union published a report showing a significant increase in verbal and physical attacks on Jews across the continent.

In his only interview before leaving the UK after more than three years here, Zvi Shtauber, a former soldier and university vice-president, said that he had loved living in such a 'tolerant' country but had been profoundly shocked by the anti-Jewish sentiments expressed by some left-wing politicians and activists and the lack of reaction to them.

'If there is a concern, it is a growing anti-Semitism, covered in a [veneer] of being anti-Israeli, that is coming from the Left,' Shtauber said. 'All along we were afraid of the Right. Now there is an unholy alliance between the Left and Islamic fundamentalists.'

 

Shtauber singled out Tam Dalyell, the veteran Labour MP, Jenny Tonge, the former Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on children, and the New Statesman magazine for criticism. Tonge was sacked from her party's front bench after suggesting that she might have resorted to violence had she been a Palestinian.

Dalyell told Vanity Fair magazine that Tony Blair relied too much on Jewish advisers, and the New Statesman published a cover showing the Union Jack pierced by a Star of David to illustrate a story on the support for Israel among Jews in the UK.

Shtauber said that people paid attention to negative references to Muslims or Hindus but not when Jews were denigrated. 'Anti-Semitism is a successful ideology,' he said. 'It is very important to make a stand.'

Last week's row was provoked by coverage of a 16-year-old suicide bomber who surrendered to Israeli troops on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government accused British TV editors of having an 'agenda' and singled out BBC correspondent Orla Guerin, alleging that she had a 'total identification with the goals and methods of Palestinian terror groups' and a 'deep-seated bias against Israel'. The BBC denied the accusation. The row came as several foreign news organisations complained of increasing pressure from the Israeli government to curtail critical coverage or to report stories that Israel believes help to identify the Palestinian conflict with Islamic terrorism elsewhere in the world.

In a wide-ranging interview in the heavily guarded Israeli embassy near London's Kensington Palace, Shtauber, a former policy adviser to Israel's last Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, said that, though he remained optimistic about an eventual settlement, a 'terrible incitement' to hate Jews and Israel had made peace in the Middle East very hard to achieve.

'It will not be tomorrow,' said Shtauber, who played a key role in the Camp David peace negotiations with the Palestinians in 2000. 'Why would a boy in the Gaza Strip who has been told that Israeli agents deliberately spread Aids [among Muslims] want to make peace with us? There are TV programmes all over the Middle East broadcasting the worst anti-Semitic slurs. They have a huge effect.'

Shtauber, who retired from the Israel Defence Forces in l995 as a brigadier-general, was appointed to the UK before Ariel Sharon's landslide election victory in 2001. His tenure in the London post has been tumultuous, with the start of the second Palestinian intifada, the 11 September attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seen as an effective ambassador, Shtauber was due to return to Israel last year but was forced to stay on after a series of possible replacements either pulled out or were rejected. The new ambassador is to be Zvi Hefetz, a Russian-born lawyer who is a close friend of Sharon's eldest son and deputy chairman of a pro-Sharon newspaper. Leading British Jews lobbied against the appointment, claiming that Hefetz's lack of diplomatic experience and limited English would be a major handicap in such a sensitive role.

Shtauber has had a number of tough exchanges with the Foreign Office. Late last month Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons called him in to express the UK Government's concern over the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant terrorist group Hamas, by a missile strike. Shtauber was told that Israel's actions should stay within international law.

He admitted last week that Israel did not always see 'eye to eye' with Britain, but said that he had been impressed by the British Government's commitment to the fight against terrorism.