Corbyn’s own goal
He called on fans to boycott his beloved Arsenal over sponsorship deal with Israelis
‘Obsession blinds him’
JEREMY Corbyn once demanded a boycott of Arsenal football club for accepting Israeli sponsorship, it emerged yesterday
The Labour leader, a supporter of the team, said in 2006 that fans should stop attending matches while Israeli tourist board adverts appeared at the club’s Emirates stadium in North London.
He told a Palestine Solidarity Campaign conference: ‘We must campaign against and boycott Arsenal football club for their arrangement with the Israeli tourist board.
‘It is wrong to treat both parties [Israel and the Palestinians] as equals.’
In contrast, he has not spoken out over one of the club’s latest deals – with Rwanda, which is now controlled by the brutal regime of President Paul Kagame.
In return for sponsorship, tourism to the tiny African state will be promoted on players’ armbands.
The Israel revelations will further embarrass Mr Corbyn on the eve of Labour’s party conference, which is likely to be dominated by the anti- Semitism row. Listed as a speaker alongside Mr Corbyn at the 2006 event was preacher Daud Abdullah, who called for attacks on the Royal Navy if it tried to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, and led a boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Arsenal’s ground is in Mr Corbyn’s Islington constituency. The £350,000 deal with the Israeli tourist board was agreed by Dubai-based Emirates airline, the club’s main sponsor, and is believed to have lasted one or two years.
Gideon Falter of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s obsession with Israel blinds him. He called for a boycott of his own football club, not because of its close association with the Emirates – which engages in torture and execution – but because of some obscure connection to Israel.’
Mr Corbyn has supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls for a wholesale boycott of everything associated with Israel, in the past.
He has since maintained that he opposes a boycott of Israel as a whole. A Labour spokesman said: ‘Jeremy has never boycotted an Arsenal game. He does support targeted action aimed at illegal settlements and the occupation of Palestinian territories.’
Security Minister Ben Wallace mocked Corbynite claims by Unite official Andrew Murray of a ‘deep state’ secret service plot to stop a Labour government.
Mr Wallace said: ‘Our spooks don’t waste time [on] someone no one has ever heard of. They are too busy trying to stop terrorism.’