President Shimon Peres will not visit a Holocaust plaque in Britain after the local Association of Jewish Refugees withdrew its sponsorship of the new memorial because it makes no mention of Jews. The memorial also does not recognize diplomats who went against British policy and tried to save Jews from extermination, the London Jewish Chronicle reported.
The newspaper quoted Israeli officials as saying that the President will not visit the planned unveiling of the plaque due to "scheduling problems."
President Peres's visit on Thursday with Foreign Secretary David Miliband will take place as planned, but the meeting originally was supposed to precede the unveiling. Invitations to the ceremony were sent out a month ago, according to the Chronicle.
An audience with the Queen and an historic address to the Parliament are overshadowing the negative aspect of the "nameless" Holocaust plaque. He will be knighted during his meeting with the Queen and will be the first Israeli ever to speak before a joint meeting of the House of Commons and House of Lords.
He received an honorary doctorate from King's College in London Tuesday night for his long-time diplomatic efforts, and the degree will help silence British university academics, who have been trying to stage a boycott of Israel.
Despite the honors, critics of Israel have been vocal. The most prominent is Sue Blackwell, who has a doctorate degree and has been in the forefront of attempts to stage an academic boycott of the Jewish state.
Although she has campaigned for free speech for Hizbullah and Hamas terrorist organizations and for Holocaust denier David Irving, she recently wrote to activists that President Peres is a "war criminal" who should be prohibited from speaking.
"An official invitation from an Oxford college to deliver a lecture is not a question of free speech anyway," she wrote. "It is a question of giving special honors to the person to whom the invitation is issued. Why should special honors be given to a warcriminal?
"Let’s hope that some human rights lawyers can get an arrest warrant issued for him as soon as he sets foot in the UK."