LONDON, Feb 5: A group of prominent British Jews has called for freer debate on the Middle East while rejecting uncritical support of Israel.

According to media reports, the group has formed a new organisation to promote what it called plurality in the British Jews’ Middle East policy.

The Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, actor Stephen Fry and film director Mike Leigh are among almost 150 high-profile figures that have joined the new organisation - the Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).

Other signatories to the group’s founding declaration, calling for freer debate on

the Middle East, include the fashion designer Nicole Farhi and the historian Eric Hobsbawm.

The group’s website declares: “The initiative was born out of a frustration with the widespread misconception that the Jews of this country speak with one voice — and that this voice supports the Israeli government’s policies.