Veteran leftist British Labor MP Tam Dalyell has charged that Prime Minister Tony Blair was "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers," the Telegraph newspaper reported Sunday.
The newspaper 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 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. (Albawaba.com)
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