CONDEMNED
Corbyn engulfed by Munich massacre storm Israeli PM savages him over tribute at terror graves He’s ridiculed for saying ‘I don’t think I was involved’ Families of murdered athletes demand apology
JEREMY Corbyn was last night engulfed by worldwide condemnation over his visit to the graves of terror leaders linked to the munich olympics massacre.
The Labour leader was attacked by the Israeli prime minister, relatives of the murdered athletes, Jewish groups and even his own MPs.
And his attempt to quell the row backfired spectacularly when in an extraordinary interview he appeared to admit being present at a wreath-laying for Palestinian terrorists thought to have been behind the 1972 killings, but said that he did ‘not think’ he was involved.
‘I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who’s died in every terrorist incident,’ he added.
The attempted denial came despite pictures, revealed by the Daily Mail at the weekend, showing him beside their graves at a cemetery in Tunisia. His
explanation was denounced by Jewish leaders and Labour MPs as an ‘insult’ to the families of those ‘savagely murdered’.
Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Mr Corbyn deserved ‘unequivocal condemnation’ for his presence at the service honouring Palestinian ‘martyrs’.
But in an astonishing escalation, Mr Corbyn responded to Mr Netanyahu with a series of tweets challenging his treatment of Palestinians. And he accused the Israeli government over the killing of Palestinian protesters ‘including dozens of children’.
In an article for the Mail today, Tory party chairman Brandon Lewis describes the revelations about Mr Corbyn as an ‘appalling new low’ and argues he is clearly not fit for public office. On another dramatic day yesterday: Families of Israeli athletes killed in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre called on Mr Corbyn to apologise and step down as Labour leader.
It emerged that the Stop the War campaign group published an incendiary article playing down the brutal killings as unintentional while Mr Corbyn was its chairman.
The BBC largely ignored the revelations about Mr Corbyn’s visit to the graves of the Black September terrorists – while giving extensive coverage to the week-old row about Boris Johnson’s burka remarks.
Mr Netanyahu criticised Mr Corbyn over his presence at a ceremony where a wreath was laid in memory of Palestinians suspected of being behind the Munich Olympics massacre.
The Israeli PM accused the Labour leader of laying a wreath on the grave of one of those behind the 1972 atrocity in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed, after photos published by the Mail on Saturday showed him holding the floral tribute at the foot of the memorial.
Writing on Twitter, Mr Netanyahu said: ‘The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone – Left, Right and everything in between.’
The second reference was to a video which surfaced last week which appeared to show Mr Corbyn likening the situation in the West Bank to occupations during the Second World War.
Soon after Mr Netanyahu’s tweet, however, Mr Corbyn hit back. He wrote on Twitter: ‘ Israeli PM @ Netanyahu’s claims about my actions and words are false. What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children.’
The Labour leader then tweeted: ‘The nation state law sponsored by Netanyahu’s government discriminates against Israel’s Palestinian minority. I stand with the tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel demonstrating for equal rights at the weekend in Tel Aviv.’
Earlier, Mr Corbyn had finally been forced to address the growing row during a visit to Walsall, but his attempt to calm the situation served only to inflame it. Asked about the controversy, Mr Corbyn said: ‘A wreath was indeed laid by some of those who attended the conference to those that were killed in Paris in 1992.
‘I was present when it was laid. I don’t think I was actually involved in it (laying it). I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who has died in every terrorist incident everywhere because we have to end it.’
Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger last night hit back at Mr Corbyn’s attempted explanation. She said: ‘Being “present” is the same as being involved. When I attend a memorial, my presence alone, whether I lay a wreath or not, demonstrates my association and support. There can also never be a “fitting memorial” for terrorists. Where is the apology?’
Jennifer Gerber, director of Labour Friends of Israel, said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s latest statement is a further insult to those savagely murdered at Munich and their bereaved relatives.
‘ He says he was paying respect to victims of terrorism when there is clear photographic evidence of him holding a wreath. Jeremy Corbyn’s appalling actions, and Labour’s attempted cover-up, is another truly shameful day for the party he leads.’
Families of the athletes killed in Munich stepped up their criticism of Mr Corbyn.
Michal Shahar, 69, who lives in Tel Aviv, lost her father Kehat Shorr, a shooting coach, in the massacre.
She told the Mail: ‘I think he should apologise. I think for the party it is best that he resign, but [whatever happens] he must apologise.’
Ilana Romano, whose husband Yossef, a champion weightlifter, was castrated and shot dead by the Munich terrorists, said: ‘ Corbyn should have said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been there, and I apologise”.’
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn last night said: ‘Jeremy did not lay any wreath at the graves of those alleged to have been linked to the Black September organisation or the 1972 Munich killings.
‘He of course condemns that terrible attack, as he does the 1985 bombing.’
‘Where is the apology?’
BREAKING his silence at last, after the Mail published damning photographic evidence, Jeremy Corbyn utters not a word of remorse for attending a wreath-laying ceremony by the graves of Palestinian terrorists implicated in one of the most sadistic mass murders of modern times.
Instead, he strains the public’s credulity by admitting he was present at the occasion in Tunis, but adding: ‘I don’t think I was actually involved in it.’
How, then, does he explain why he is pictured holding a wreath, just feet from the burial places of leaders of the Black September group, which massacred 11 Israelis – including nine athletes – at the Munich Olympics in 1972?
He claims he was there to commemorate 47 victims of an Israeli air strike in Tunis in 1985. But how does this square with an article he wrote at the time, in the communist Morning Star, saying wreaths were also laid ‘on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991’?
The Mail believes those words can only refer to the suspected ring-leaders of the Munich massacre, two of whom were assassinated in 1991, with the Israeli secret service accused of killing another in Paris the following year.
As if his role were not questionable enough, the Labour leader has more explaining to do about a poisonous article which appeared in 2014 on the website of the Stop the War Coalition – chaired at the time by one Jeremy Corbyn.
In it, the writer blamed Israel for provoking the Munich massacre, while suggesting the hostage-takers did not intend to kill the athletes, but wanted only to swap them for Palestinian prisoners.
If their aims were so peaceful, why did they castrate one hostage and beat others until their bones broke?
Of course, there’s nothing new about Mr Corbyn’s flirtation with terrorists and enemies of Britain and our allies.
This is the man, remember, who invited IRA cheerleaders to the Commons weeks after the 1984 Brighton bombing, in which their associates tried to wipe out Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet.
With sickening insensitivity, he also chose Holocaust Memorial Day to host an antiIsraeli meeting at Westminster, during which speakers likened Palestinian casualties in Gaza to victims of Hitler’s industrialised slaughter of six million Jews.
Yet even by his own morally defective standards, his presence at that wreathlaying ceremony marks a new low.
In the words of Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger – a victim of the hard Left’s virulent anti-Semitism: ‘Where is the apology?’ As Tory Chairman Brandon Lewis suggests on this page, the idea that Mr Corbyn might one day become our prime minister is profoundly disturbing.
And that’s putting it at its mildest.