Rabbi blasts Corbyn for anti-semitic ‘poison’
BRITAIN’S CHIEF RABBI BLASTS ANTI-SEMITIC ‘POISON’ FROM LABOUR PARTY
LONDON • The chief rabbi in Britain launched a blistering rebuke of the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday, saying anti-semitism was a “poison” inside the party and raising deep worries about the country’s “moral compass” if Labour wins next month’s elections.
In an opinion piece in London’s Times newspaper, Ephraim Mirvis pointed his finger directly at Corbyn, calling the Labour leader’s assertion that his party is confronting anti-semitism in its ranks “a mendacious fiction.”
While Britain’s small Jewish population of 300,000 is fully engaged in the country’s politics, Mirvis’s comments marked a sensational intervention by a top religious leader in the Dec. 12 elections.
After the rabbi’s remarks, the Rev. Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the
Church of England, fired off a tweet of endorsement, remarking on the “deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews.”
In a prime-time BBC One interview with Andrew Neil on Tuesday, Corbyn refused four times to apologize to Britain’s Jews for his failure to root out anti-semitism in the Labour Party.
Neil said: “Wouldn’t you like to take this opportunity, tonight, to apologize to the British Jewish community for what’s happened?” Corbyn replied: “I am determined that our society will be safe for people of all faiths. I don’t want anyone to be feeling insecure in our society.” Neil asked him: “No apology?” three further times. Corbyn would only repeat that “racism in our society is a total poison.” The Labour leader was challenged over Mirvis’s allegation that it was a “mendacious fiction” to say the party was doing everything it could to tackle anti-semitism.
Corbyn said: “I’m looking forward to having a discussion with him because I want to hear why he would say such a thing. He’s not right. Because he would have to produce the evidence to say that’s mendacious.”
He also said anti-semitism “didn’t rise after I became leader.”
Corbyn insisted that he had “developed a much stronger process” for dealing with anti-semitism claims, but had to be asked four times if it was anti-semitic for a Labour member to have suggested the Rothschilds “run Israel and world governments” before accepting it was “an anti-semitic trope.”
In the upcoming elections — called because of stalemate in a divided parliament over Brexit — Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party seek a majority to finally get Britain out of the European Union. Johnson has also hammered away at Corbyn’s alleged failure to confront perceived anti-semitism in his party.
Corbyn’s Labour Party is countering with proposals for a “radical” transformation of the economy, pushing for the nationalization of rail, mail, water and electricity grids, and a big tax bill for billionaires. Corbyn also wants to renegotiate Britain’s withdrawal agreement with European leaders and then take that deal to second referendum over Brexit.
Since he took control of the party in 2015 — and saw membership surge, driven by young activists — Corbyn and Labour have been dogged by claims of anti-semitism.
Corbyn, alongside many in the left-wing of his party, are strong supporters of Palestinian rights and fierce critics of Israel’s right-wing government.
But in Facebook groups, social media posts and at meetings, Labour members have been accused of going far beyond criticism of Israel and into anti-jewish statements.
Last year, Corbyn revealed that a review of online posts among Labour members uncovered “examples of Holocaust denial, crude stereotypes of Jewish bankers, conspiracy theories blaming 9/11 on Israel, and even one individual who appeared to believe that Hitler had been misunderstood.”
Corbyn himself has been criticized for hosting a 2010 panel where Israelis were compared to Nazis. In 2012, he defended an artist’s “freedom of speech,” but failed to condemn the London mural that depicted Jewish bankers playing monopoly on a board balanced on the bent backs of the workers.
Since 2017, a dozen Labour members of parliament have quit the party, in part over its handling of anti-semitism (alongside Corbyn’s leadership and the party’s leftward tilt).
Earlier this month, the Jewish Chronicle, which has campaigned against Corbyn, published a front-page editorial against the Labour leader and released results of a poll claiming 47 per cent of British Jews would “seriously consider” leaving Britain if Corbyn won next month.
Britain’s senior rabbi, however, left no doubt where he stood. He called Corbyn unfit for leadership and even questioned the place of Jewish life in Britain under a Labour government.
“It is a failure to see this as a human problem rather than a political one,” wrote Mirvis, of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.
“It is a failure of culture. It is a failure of leadership. A new poison — sanctioned from the top has taken root in the Labour party,” he added.