"I am not going to be labeled anti-Semitic. My children worked on a kibbutz,” Dalyell

LONDON, May 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Veteran British MP Tam Dalyell, the Father of the House of Commons, sparked outrage of the Jewish figures Saturday, May 3, by accusing  British Prime Minister Tony Blair of "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers."

"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," the MP for Linlithgow told The Telegraph.

He added: "I am not going to be labeled anti-Semitic. My children worked on a kibbutz. But the time has come for candor."

The Prime Minister, Dalyell said, was also influenced by Jewish people in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense 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 I thought that Blair was very sympathetic to them. I cannot understand why," Dalyell said.

Dalyell's statements, in effect, caused fury Saturday night.

"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," Tony Blair's personal envoy on the Middle East, Peter Mandelson, said.

Lord Janner, a Labor 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 is 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."