LONDON — British Jews have responded angrily to an official visit to England’s capital by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The visit is “quite disgusting,” said a spokesman for the Zionist Federation of Britain, one of the main organizers of a London protest held Monday as Assad had lunch with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“It has upset many people in the Jewish community in London and beyond,” spokesman Simon Barrett added.
As Blair and Assad met Monday, hundreds of pro- and anti-Syria demonstrators chanted and banged pots and pans outside the gates of Downing Street.
Blair’s treatment of Assad comes as the British Prime Minister also rejected a request for a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The request was turned down, according to British officials, because Blair does not meet with foreign ministers. The rejection came after Blair recently invited the leader of Israel’s Labor Party, Amram Mitzna, to visit him in London. Israeli officials were quoted Tuesday as calling Blair’s invitation to Mitzna “blatant interference” in the upcoming Israeli elections.
Assad’s visit — the first official visit to Britain by a Syrian head of state — is being seen partly as a reward for Syria’s recent support of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which threatened Baghdad with “serious consequences” if it did not allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return to Iraq.
Syria, the Security Council’s only Arab member, was not expected to back the resolution when it came up for a vote in late November. But it cast its supporting vote at the last minute, allowing unanimous passage of the resolution.
In addition, observers say, Assad was invited to London because Britain is eager to keep Syria behind the U.S.-led coalition in the event of an attack on Iraq.
But British Jews say such strategic goals do not justify the red-carpet treatment Assad received.
In addition to a lunch with Blair, Assad also met Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles and was hosted by the Lord Mayor of London during his Dec. 15-18 visit.
Lord Janner, a veteran Labor Party politician and a vice president of the World Jewish Congress, said it is “perfectly reasonable and proper” that, as leader of a country on the Security Council, Assad be received by the prime minister.
“But it is not reasonable that he meet the queen or Prince Charles,” Janner said.
Many British Jews went further, especially in light of Assad’s support for suicide bombers in an interview last week with the Times of London newspaper and a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph that Syria is continuing to smuggle arms to Iraq.
Moreover, critics point out, terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all maintain offices in Damascus.
“It is one thing having dialogue and another having a red-carpet treatment,” said Stuart Polak, director of the lobbying group Conservative Friends of Israel.