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- GRAPEVINE, Page 13It's Undiplomatic, But I Meant It
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- By DAVID ELLIS/Reported by Sidney Urquhart
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- Western frustration with Israel may be running deeper than
- top diplomats are willing to admit publicly. In a stinging
- private speech before an Anglo-Arab group, David Gore-Booth, the
- British assistant under secretary for Middle Eastern affairs,
- declared that in its handling of the occupied West Bank and
- Gaza, Israel is little or no better than any other Middle
- Eastern state in terms of its militarism, standard of democracy
- and denial of human rights. The Foreign Office expert attributed
- the instability of the region to "Israel's refusal to allow the
- Palestinians to have the same rights as those they claim for
- themselves." After his unusually candid comments surfaced in the
- British press, Gore-Booth was quick to call them his "personal
- views." But the senior diplomat was not even reprimanded.
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