Fury as Dalyell attacks Blair's 'Jewish cabal'/the Father of the House, sparked outrage/Telegraph/04/05

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Fury as Dalyell attacks Blair's 'Jewish cabal'
By Colin Brown and Chris Hastings
(Filed: 04/05/2003)

Tam Dalyell, the Father of the House, sparked outrage last night by accusing the Prime Minister of "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers".

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the Left-wing Labour MP named Lord Levy, Tony Blair's personal envoy on the Middle East, Peter Mandelson, whose father was Jewish, and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who has Jewish ancestry, as three of the leading figures who had influenced Mr Blair's policies on the Middle East.

Tam Dalyell

Yesterday Mr Dalyell, the MP for Linlithgow, told The Telegraph: "I am fully aware that one is treading on cut glass on this issue and no one wants to be accused of anti-Semitism but, if it is a question of launching an assault on Syria or Iran . . . then one has to be candid."

He added: "I am not going to be labelled anti-Semitic. My children worked on a kibbutz. But the time has come for candour." The Prime Minister, Mr Dalyell claimed, was also indirectly influenced by Jewish people in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, and Ari Fleischer, the President's press secretary.

"They very much have captured the ear of the President of the United States. I said [to Vanity Fair] I thought that Blair was very sympathetic to them. I cannot understand why," Mr Dalyell said.

Mr Dalyell's claim caused fury last night. Mr Mandelson said: "Apart from the fact that I am not actually Jewish, I wear my father's parentage with pride. As for Tam, he is as incorrigible as ever."

Lord Janner, a Labour peer and the chairman of the Holocaust Education Trust, said: "I think these comments are sad and unfounded. Tony Blair is his own man. He will follow advice if he considers it correct and not otherwise. He has been a good friend of the Jewish people and the Jewish state."

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead Synagogue and a spokesman for Britain's Reform Synagogues, said: "Tam Dalyell is not being candid but misguided. Concerning Iraq it was crystal clear that Tony Blair was not swayed by popularity or anyone else but by his own deep convictions. It is also obvious that the majority of President Bush's circle are Christian Evangelicals rather than Jews."

Ned Temko, the American-born editor of the Jewish Chronicle, said: "I just think these sort of comments are offensive and are a profound misunderstanding of the way foreign policy is made in the United States or here."

A spokesman for Lord Levy said he was not available for comment. A spokesman for the Foreign Secretary said: "If these reports are accurate, these remarks are too unworthy to be worth a comment."