British MP charges 'Jewish cabal' guiding Blair

Veteran leftist British Labour MP Tam Dalyell has charged that Prime Minister Tony Blair was "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers," the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Sunday.

The comment echoed remarks by maverick U.S. Republican Patrick Buchanan, who was widely accused of anti-Semitism when in an article last March, he described a predomninately Jewish group of advisers to President Bush as "a cabal of polemicists and public officials [who] seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interests."

The statement also coincided with publication of research showing that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom rose by 75 percent during the first three months of 2003, according to a report issued by the Community Security Trust (CST), which says the increase was directly linked to the war in Iraq.

The Telegraph quoted an interview with Vanity Fair, in which the 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."

Dalyell told the Telegraph on Saturday that he was "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," Dalyell said.

Mandelson said in response: "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."

The BBC said 89 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in the first quarter of the year, a 75-percent rise from the same period last year. The CST reported that there were 43 incidents in March alone - the highest figure for that month for over a decade.

The CST blamed the sharp rise in anti-Semitism on anti-war campaigners who linked the Iraq conflict to the situation in Israel. Mike Whine, CST's media director, told the BBC, "The Iraq war fed anti-Semitism because groups from across the political and social spectrum alleged that the war was fought for 'Zionist' interests."

Whine said anti-war protesters "consistently linked the issues of Iraq and the events in Israel and Palestine."

In January, 21 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded and 25 were reported in February. Eleven incidents in the first four months of the year took place on university campuses, CST said. The incidents included 15 violent attacks, one of them on a Midlands rabbi. The assault victims, clearly identifiable Jews, were punched, kicked and spat at. In addition, swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were painted on Jewish institutions and prominent community members received hate mail.

The figures come less than a week after the Tel Aviv University's Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism released its figures for last year, showing a significant rise in the number of violent anti-Semitic incidents around the world.

A total of 311 serious incidents were recorded in 2002, of which 56 were incidents that included the use of some kind of weapon, compared to 228 serious incidents in 2001, of which 50 included the use of weapons.

	Labour MP Tam Dalyell: 'I am not going to be labeled anti-Semitic.' (Photo: United Kingdom Parliament website)