Corbyn, Releasing Anti-Semitism in Labour

"While Corbyn was speaking there was a large scuffle when someone trying to grab my placard.
It involved about ten people: one person tried to grab my placard, some tried to help him, some tried to separate us, some tried to defend me."
“We ran into the city council building because there we were fearful for our safety. I reported the assault to the police and I have a meeting with them on Sunday."
“I knew there was an issue with anti-Semitism in Labour – but it was absolutely shocking that shouldn’t happen at a mainstream British political event."
Seb Sultan, politics finalist, Bristol University

"The first instance I saw was someone came up to us and said, ‘You’re all puppets of the Zionist media’ and then stormed off. From then on in, people started yelling abuse at us, people wearing Labour party stickers."

"[Jewish students were accused of being] Tory operatives', selfish for only caring about anti-Semitism [and told] I bet the Israeli government has paid you to be here."
Sabrina Miller,  second year English Literature student, Bristol University

Demonstrators take part in a protest against anti-Semitism outside Labour Party headquarters in central London on April 8, 2018.   Simon Dawson / Reuters

"At no point in post-World War II British history has anti-Semitism seen the prominence in national politics that it has in the lead-up to Thursday’s general election. The British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is now widely considered to be, in the words of some of its own former members of Parliament, 'institutionally anti-Semitic', thrusting the issue of anti-Semitism into the spotlight and leaving Jews questioning their future if the party wins."
"However, even if Corbyn loses and is ultimately replaced, Labour has been transformed under his leadership: Its radical left wing now dominates the party machinery, significant numbers of moderates have left, and anti-Semitic attitudes have been unleashed. Some of his devotees will surely blame any loss on a conspiracy by the media, financial interests and, yes, British Jews."
Toby Greene, Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London

"Our party and me do not accept anti-Semitism in any form. Obviously I am very sorry for everything that has happened, but I want to make this clear - I am dealing with it, I have dealt with it."
"Other parties are also affected by anti-Semitism. Candidates have been withdrawn by the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, and by us, because of it. We just do not accept it in any form whatsoever."
British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn

Accusations and denials fly about in the United Kingdom as December 12, the date of its general election draws near. And right on the cusp of the election a just-released poll sees forty-seven percent of Britain's Jewish community, established over a thousand years of citizenship, considering abandoning the country which they feel has abandoned them. Should the Opposition Labour Party win this election, it can be expected that a good number of British Jews will evacuate the premises and seek haven elsewhere, leaving their British-Jewish heritage however reluctantly, behind.

Since Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership in 2015, Jews have been faced with an unending and still growing litany of harassment in meetings of the party, which the majority of British Jews have always considered their party of choice. Ant-Semitic material has been posted on social media by officials and politicians representing the Labour Party. Hatred of a virulent, ancient variety has been unleashed and it has been the presence of its leader that has had that undeniable effect.

This is a man who has repeatedly met with -- sympathized with, invited to Parliament, seen fit to defend and to honour -- terrorists. He was himself honoured to share public space with Holocaust deniers along with Jew-haters who espouse a new Holocaust to finish what Nazi Germany left undone. The planners of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre were memorialized by him in a wreath-laying ceremony among his 'friends' in the Middle East, lying that he was not present until a photograph emerged and then he claimed not to have been 'involved'.

He may object 'till the cows come home that criticism of Israel is legitimate without being anti-Semitic but it's a stale, outworn, rancid and false defence as he very well knows. Irrational obsession with Israel; holding Israel to standards no other country is held to; shifting historic anti-Semitic images to Israel of Jews as secret manipulators of the world or inhuman parasites leeching off the world's oppressed; or comparing Israel to Nazi Germany has been defined as anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, recognized globally for having identified racist tropes for what they are.

Britain\'s chief rabbi:the "very soul of our nation is at stake" .Simon Dawson

In Parliament he referred to Dame Ellman, a staunch Labour MP for 23 years, and a Jew, as "the Honourable Member for Tel Aviv". Nine Labour MPs left the party, all uttering scathingly pointed observations about the party leader, earning them in exchange, attacks by Corbyn supporters, along with threats to their safety. Labour disputes department whistleblowers spoke of staggering incidents of anti-Semitism they received for investigation and how Corbyn's office interfered with them.

No fewer than sixty-seven House of Lords Labour members spoke of Corbyn's time as leader as "the most shaming period in Labour's history". Old footage of hateful rants directed toward Israel from Corbyn keep emerging to the light of day. Corbyn's supporters were shown by a recent poll to be more likely to agree with anti-Semitic statements than are other groups; with those strongest in support of Corbyn the likelier to respond 'Yes!' to sentiments of anti-Semitism.

All of which have served to make British Jews feel vulnerable and unsupported by their fellow countrymen. That there has been no robust push-back from the general population to the vibrantly poisonous emissions of Anti-Semitism emanating from its leader and from his inner circle has been a disappointment to the British Jewish community, feeling estranged and abandoned by their countrymen with whom they once and so recently felt they had so much in common in their love for the country of their birth.

Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in an interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil on Nov. 26. -

Copyright    Jeff Overs