ANGRY campaigners have called on a top private school to reconsider plans to hold a "pro-Palestinian" meeting tonight.

The talk at Sherborne School in North Dorset has been organised jointly by the recently formed Palestine Support Group and the school.

The guest speaker is Sharen Green of Wimborne, who spent three months last year in the West Bank as an ecumenical worker.

But after news of the talk spread via word of mouth and websites, groups and activists approached senior figures at the school.

They claim the school, a boarding school for 13 to 18-year-old boys, is only putting forward a pro-Palestinian stance.

Simon McIlwaine of Croydon-based Anglicans For Israel said: "We asked Sherborne to recon-sider this invitation, which is so destructive of Christian-Jewish relations."

Joy Wolfe, a pro-Israeli activist, told headmaster Simon Eliot that students should hear both sides of the story, not just "anti-Israel propaganda".

Merley resident Ms Green, 60, said this was her 18th talk since she returned from her visit in August, and she had never encountered such a furore.

"The group which I went with does not take sides in the dispute," she said.

She added: "Anglicans For Israel is trying to silence me without knowing what I have got to say."

Headmaster Simon Eliot said he had no comment.

On Friday the school website carried a statement defending the meeting. It said the school had previously invited the chief rabbi to give the annual lecture and Terry Waite has also delivered a lecture at the school.

The boys had visited Auschwitz and marked Holocaust Day, while Judaism is part of their religious education.

"Sherborne School believes in the value of open debate as part of informing and educating its pupils. The school, whose chairman of governors has been consulted, respects the right of those concerned to make their views known about the March 5 meeting.

"Equally it hopes that they in turn will respect the right of the school to facilitate public meetings on major issues of the day, whether or not the views expressed are generally shared by the audience, or indeed by the school."