Former UK prime minister aides' anger over PLO site visit, archives reveal

The UK foreign office and aides to the prime minister were caught up in a spat over whether a minister should visit a Palestinian centre in Jerusalem in 1995.

Initially, plans for the-then foreign office minister Douglas Hogg to visit Orient House in Jerusalem were discussed. 

The Orient House is a known as a cultural hub of Palestinian life in Jerusalem and was a headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the 1980s and 1990s.

Some in the UK protested the planned visit, leaving the aides of then prime minister John Major concerned over the impact the visit might have.

"These Foreign Office camels never give up. I am amazed they allowed us to go to Israel at all," Major's principal private secretary, Roderic Lyne, wrote on an FCO briefing note, the archives revealed.

Camels is a nickname that originates from the official term Camels Corps, to describe mostly Arabists in the UK foreign office.

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"Israeli feelings about this are clearly pretty strong. And we don't want a re-run of the row here over the status of Jerusalem. Time to stand up to the FCO's Arabist lobby!," he added.

The Foreign Office initially argued in favour of visiting Orient House, under the pretext that that European Union policy was for officials visiting Israel to make a point of calling on the venue in East Jerusalem. Not complying with the code would be a "significant departure" from standard practice.



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