Strasbourg, 26/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Conference of the Leaders of the political groups in the European Parliament, meeting on Thursday 26 October on the sidelines of the plenary session in Strasbourg, decided to postpone the ad-hoc delegation's visit to Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon, due to take place at eth end of the week. The official reason for this postponement is “technical reasons”, in the words of the German chairman of the Foreign affairs committee Elmar Brok (CDU). The Conference of the Presidents took the decision to protest against the Israeli authorities' interference in the make up of the European Parliamentary delegation. The Israelis refused to meet any delegation which contained a member of the French Front National. Marine Le Pen was due to be included in the delegation. There are precedents, such as the refusal of the United States to allow French Revolutionary Communist League MEP Alain Krivine to enter the country. More recently a delegation from the environment committee had to give up plans to visit Turkey, because Turkish authorities refused to accept a Cypriot MEP as a delegation member. In all circumstances, Parliament has refused to allow itself to be told who could or could not form part of its delegations. (oj)