PM talks on Israel

In a message to the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley, of which she is the president, on the occasion of their Israel Independence Day celebrations, the Prime Minister, Mrs Margret Thatcher emphasised “the need to relaunch the peace process” in the Middle East.

“Britain, firmly committed to friendship with Israel and to its security, will do all it can to bring about a wider peace in the Middle East as a whole,” the Prime Minister said. She added: “Britain and Israel share a common commitment to democracy and freedom. Those great ideals have to be sustained and defended.

“In my message to you last year I paid tribute to the sacrifices Israel had made in order to secure peace with Egypt. That peace was an historic achievement. The past year has been a disturbing one—for Israel, for Lebanon and for the Middle East as a whole.

“In recent days hopes of renewed negotiations for peace have been set back. But the need to relaunch the process and bring peace and justice to all peoples in the region remains as strong as ever.”

Mrs Thatcher's message was addressed to Councillor Frank Gibson, chairman of the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley and read out at their Independence Day dinner.

Commenting on the message, Councillor Gibson said: “At a time when Israel needs all the friends it can get, it is most comforting to know that we have in Mrs Thatcher, who is the most outstanding statesmen in the world today, someone who is its sincere and positive friend.”

Proposing a toast to the president and State of Israel at the festive dinner, Councillor Gibson said that the attendance of over 170 was an all-time record, and was indicative that the Finchley area represented the heartland of support for Israel.

“The destruction, he said, of the PLO as a military force as it was left to fight alone, and its scattering into neighbouring Arab countries, would have a much wider impact for peace in the whole of the Middle East then just to free Northern Israel from continual attack.”

As regards the settlements on the West Bank, Councillor Gibson emphasised, as he witnessed himself recently, that the new ones and extensions of old sites were on barren, rocky and stoney ground which had been like that for 2000 years and, but for the tremendously hard work put in by the settlers, it would have remained like that for another 2000 years.

Mr Moshe Barr, First Secretary at the Israel Embassy, addressed the meeting and the Mayor of the London Borough of Barnet, Councillor Victor Usher, proposed the royal toast.