Peres' remarks enrage British MPs

Peres has accused the UK government of being
"deeply pro-Arab and anti-Israeli."


Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=137203§ionid=351021806


UK lawmakers have reacted angrily to remarks by Israeli President Shimon Peres accusing the Britons of being anti-Semitic.

In an interview published last week on the Tablet website, Peres alleged that the English people and their government were "deeply pro-Arab and anti-Israeli".

His comments came days after British Prime Minister David Cameron referred to the Gaza Strip as a "prison camp" during a state visit to Turkey.

Israel imposed a full blockade on the impoverished territory after Ismail Haniya became the democratically-elected Palestinian prime minister in July 2007.

Andrew Rosindell, Conservative MP for Romford, said, "I'm sad that he has made these wholly inaccurate comments, which do not accord at all with my experience of British views on Israel and people of Jewish faith."

Brian Iddon, a Labour member of the All-Party Parliamentary Britain-Palestine Group, said, "We are always being accused of anti-Semitism. The Israeli government is coming in for more and more criticism, and because of that more and more people are being described as anti-Semitic. "

Peres said in the interview that Britain's attitude towards the Jews was Israel's "next big problem."

"There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary," he noted.

The British prime minister, meanwhile, happens to be a member of a powerful lobby in the House of Commons called the Conservative Friends of Israel, which firmly advocates support and protection of Israel's interests.