For too long the leader of the opposition has tolerated antisemitism in his party. For too long he has dragged his feet amid a growing clamour from inside and outside the Labour movement to stamp it out. Now Jeremy Corbyn is revealed as straightforwardly antisemitic himself. That is the conclusion any reasonable listener must draw from a 2013 speech in London in which he claimed that “Zionists” did not want to study history and “don’t understand English irony either”.
The speech used the word “Zionists” as a synonym for “Jews” and as a term of casual abuse. It sought to depict British Jews as alien to British culture, and wilfully ignorant of it despite “having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives”. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has said Mr Corbyn’s remarks have been taken out of context and that Mr Corbyn has dedicated his career to the pursuit of peace. To take such evasions at face value is at best naive.
There is a place in any party for legitimate criticism of any country’s foreign and domestic policies, including Israel’s, but this was not Mr Corbyn’s subject. He was singling out Jews on the basis of their ethnicity as problematic and in need of “lessons”. This is antisemitism. Anyone in doubt where such remarks might resonate was offered clarification yesterday via Twitter, which published messages of support for Mr Corbyn from Nick Griffin, former head of the British National Party, and David Duke, a Holocaust denier and former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. With friends like these, Mr Corbyn can end his long search for enemies in implausible places.
Labour’s current leadership has gone through the motions of addressing antisemitism in the party rank and file, but it has a blind spot when it looks for antisemitism in the mirror. It is fixated on the notion that it has become the victim of a media conspiracy to remove Mr Corbyn using antisemitism as a pretext.
There are many reasons to remove Mr Corbyn from the leadership of a once-great progressive party. One is his economic illiteracy, which would cause a run on the pound if ever allowed to influence policy. Another is his conspiratorial world view, formed as a student, based on a kneejerk instinct to blame America for the world’s ills, and unchanged by decades on the back benches — or, it appears, by three years close to power. But what disqualifies him from power and from his present position is precisely his antisemitism. His refusal to acknowledge it does not make it any less real. This is not a pretext for his removal but the most urgent reason for it, and the task falls squarely on the shoulders of Labour members who have so far conspicuously failed to summon the courage or moral clarity to carry it out.
Mr Corbyn has a record of insouciant disregard for the concerns of British Jewry and of evasion about his past affiliations. His remarks from 2013, only two years before his elevation to Labour’s leadership, are a case apart even from this dismaying history. Alongside him on the platform were conspiracy theorists including an Anglican vicar who has claimed that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks and whom Mr Corbyn has commended for “excellent work . . . in highlighting the injustices of the Palestinian-Israeli situation”. The event was publicised on the website of the military wing of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation that far from recognising Israel is dedicated to its destruction.
Labour prime ministers have included such staunch friends of Israel as Harold Wilson, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. By contrast, Mr Corbyn exemplifies not only poor judgment but bigotry and dishonour. In earlier eras, he would have been forced to resign. His comments should render him ineligible for membership, let alone leadership, of a democratic party and for public office.
- The Times - 25th August 2018
