George--Again Again

"Every Western Jew is ready to fight to the last Israeli." That remark, made last week in a House of Commons committee room to 500 Laborite "Friends of Israel," seemed calculated to start a riot.

"That's an insult!" a listener shouted. "Shut up!" retorted the speaker, none other than the Deputy Leader of Britain's Labor Party. George Brown was at it again. Fresh from his remarkable performance last month on an unofficial visit to the Middle East, where he insulted both Israelis and Arabs with cheerful impartiality (TIME, Feb. 2). the outspoken ex-Foreign Secretary refused to be intimidated by his audience. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, he declared, is "a tough politician--I love her very much. But I'm fond of Nasser, too. If you want peace, you have to like both peoples. The Jews are wrong to attack Nasser. I think he is an honest man."

When another angry listener accused him of saying "Is-rye-eel" in the Arab manner, Brown quickly responded: "I pronounce it the way my Jewish father-in-law pronounces it." Furthermore, he added, "I can't tell an Arab from a Jew. They are both Semitic peoples. They both have noses as long as mine."

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