Corbyn under fire again for ‘vague, meaningless’ article against anti-Semitism
Observant Jews unable to respond to opinion piece published by UK Labour leader just before start of Sabbath; critics note he appears to have copied section from earlier article
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is facing growing criticism for an opinion piece published Friday in which he dismissed accusations from the British Jewish community that the prospect of his party coming to power posed an “existential threat” to Jews.
“This statement from Jeremy Corbyn bears all of the hallmarks of his spin doctors’ usual techniques,” Gideon Falter, head of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, told the Daily Mail. “He has released a vague and meaningless article, just as the Jewish community goes home to begin the Sabbath.”
Corbyn had been expected to make a speech to the Jewish community, but ultimately published an article on the Guardian website Friday entitled “I will root anti-Semites out of Labour — they do not speak for me.”
The opinion piece addressed mounting accusations that Corbyn’s party is a haven for anti-Semites and that, if not one himself, he has done little to stop them.
“I do not for one moment accept that a Labour government would represent any kind of threat, let alone an ‘existential threat,’ to Jewish life in Britain, as three Jewish newspapers recently claimed,” Corbyn wrote, before dismissing it as a kind of “overheated rhetoric.”
The editor of one of the newspapers dismissed Corbyn’s article in a tweet on Friday.
“So keen is Corbyn to engage with Jews that he publishes this (awful) piece on a Friday night, for a Saturday paper. So not a single observant Jew can engage with it,” wrote Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard.
The Labour leader was also accused of a “copy and paste” apology, with critics noting the similarities between Friday’s article and one he wrote for London’s Evening Standard newspaper in April.
Compare and Contrast the two below images.
The first is from today's Guardian article: https://t.co/HBqcBeIuGS And the second is from a article in the Standard from back in April: https://t.co/a3EzTduWRc pic.twitter.com/FAV2PhRkq4
— Stewart (@ComfortableBlue) August 3, 2018
The article also came under fire from the Jewish Labour Movement, which called for action, not words.
“Today, other than another article bemoaning a situation of the Party’s own making, nothing has changed. There is no trust left. We find ourselves asking once again for action, not words,” JLM said in a statement.
Corbyn claimed on Friday that “driving anti-Semitism out of the party for good, and rebuilding that trust, are our priorities,” before vowing to take Jewish fears seriously.
“I do acknowledge there is a real problem that Labour is working to overcome. And I accept that, if any part of our national community feels threatened, anxious or vulnerable, not only must that be taken at face value but we must all ensure those fears are put to rest,” he wrote.
Pressure on Corbyn has intensified after a series of anti-Semitic scandals involving both members of the party and himself.
Last month, the party’s ruling body and leadership endorsed a code of conduct that excluded several of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance examples of anti-Semitism.
The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is the benchmark for countless organizations, as well as 31 countries including the US, Canada, Germany, France, and the UK itself.
The party has come under fire from Jewish members of Labour and the British Jewish community for not adopting the full definition — particularly several items that define anti-Semitism masquerading as legitimate criticism of Israel.
The current Labour guidelines on anti-Semitism, approved last month, omit at least four points featured in the original IHRA list, including accusing Jews of “being more loyal to Israel” than their own country; claiming that Israel’s existence is a “racist endeavor”; applying a “double standard” on Israel; and comparing “contemporary Israeli policy” to that of the Nazis.
Among the scandals personally involving Corbyn that have emerged in the last week alone were the revelations that he gave an interview to Iraqi TV in 2015, in which he called the Balfour Declaration “bizarre” and questioned the founding of Israel; that he hosted a parliamentary event in which a Holocaust survivor compared Israel to the Nazis; and that in 2011, Corbyn was among a group of predominantly Labour politicians who proposed changing the name of Holocaust Memorial Day to “Genocide Memorial Day – Never Again For Anyone,” to reflect that “Nazism targeted not only Jewish [people].”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=ihVLo5cGYEo
In the past Corbyn has called the Hezbollah and Hamas terror groups his “friends.” In 2016, an interparliamentary committee accused Labour of creating a “safe space for those with vile attitudes towards Jewish people.”
Not in my name
In his article Friday, Corbyn promised to take “whatever measures are necessary to guarantee the security of Jewish communities, Jewish schools, Jewish places of worship, Jewish social care, Jewish culture and Jewish life as a whole in this country.”
He also pledged to work so that Jews once again feel at home in the Labour party.
“Driving anti-Semitism out of the party for good, and rebuilding that trust, are our priorities,” he wrote. “One part of that is working to ensure that all Labour party members show a higher degree of empathy with the perspective of the Jewish community, a community which endured a campaign of extermination across Europe just 75 years ago.”
Corbyn also acknowledged that his party had been “too slow in processing disciplinary cases of anti-Semitic abuse, mostly online,” citing cases of Holocaust denial and crude anti-Semitic banker stereotypes.
He said that perpetrators made up only a tiny fraction of Labour members.
“But one is too many,” he acknowledged. “Our party must never be a home for such people, and never will be. People who dish out anti-Semitic poison need to understand: you do not do it in my name. You are not my supporters and have no place in our movement.”
An affinity for Israel
Corbyn said he would consult with Jewish community leaders to try and resolve the dispute over the definition of anti-Semitism, saying that the only real difference in opinion revolved around the issue of “free speech in relation to Israel.”
“I fully understand and respect the strong affection and affinity most Jews in Britain feel for Israel, whatever their view of the current Israeli government,” he wrote.
“It is unfortunately the case that this particular example, dealing with Israel and racism, has sometimes been used by those wanting to restrict criticism of Israel that is not anti-Semitic,” he wrote.
“All of us committed to peace and justice in the Middle East accept that the perspective of the Palestinian people, and their experience as victims of racism and discrimination, should not be censored or penalized any more than the right of Jewish self-determination should be denied.”
Corbyn said his concerns over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and its Arab minorities were shared by many UK Jews and that this “should not be a source of dispute.”
However he slammed Israel’s “killing of many unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza,” while failing to address the threat from terrorism faced by Israel.
He ended by calling on British Jews to join with Labour in confronting the rise of the far-right in the country which was “threatening black, Muslim and Jewish communities alike. That is a clear and present danger,” he wrote.
