MUNICH MASSACRE WIDOWS RAGE AT CORBYN
As pressure grows on Labour leader to answer questions about tribute at terrorists’ graves...
WIDOWS of Munich victims last night condemned Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to graves of terrorists linked with the massacre. they demanded an apology for what they described as an
‘act of maliciousness, cruelty and stupidity’.
the Labour leader also came under pressure from Jewish groups and his own MPs over his ‘despicable’ trip to tunisia.
he has refused to answer key questions about the visit to a cemetery where members of Black September – the terror group that killed 11 israelis at the 1972 olympics – are buried.
the Mail’s revelations about the trip in 2014 have deepened the anti-Semitism row engulfing Mr corbyn. Photographs in Saturday’s newspaper showed
him holding a wreath near the graves of those implicated in Black September and the Munich attack. Mr Corbyn was also apparently observing a prayer during a service to honour Palestinian ‘martyrs’.
Labour has insisted he was there to commemorate 47 victims of an Israeli air strike on a Palestine Liberation Organisation base in Tunisia in 1985.
But he wrote shortly after the trip that wreaths had been laid not just for the 1985 victims but ‘on the graves of others killed by Mossad’. And it emerged yesterday that the air strike memorial at the cemetery is inscribed with the names of some of the terror chiefs.
Ilana Romano, whose husband Yossef, a champion weightlifter, was castrated and shot dead by the Munich terrorists, said Mr Corbyn was ‘a danger’.
The 71-year-old from Tel Aviv added: ‘To go to the grave of a person behind the killing of 11 athletes, he should be ashamed and apologise. He’s not a person of peace. It doesn’t bother him to hurt the families. A person who goes to the grave of killers doesn’t want peace.’
Ankie Spitzer, who lost her husband Andre, a fencing coach, at Munich, said Mr Corbyn was ‘hate-filled’.
She and Mrs Romano together said: ‘We do not recall a visit of Mr Corbyn to the graves of our murdered fathers, sons and husbands. They only went to the Olympics to participate in this festival of love, peace and brotherhood; but they all returned home in coffins.
‘For Mr Corbyn to honour these terrorists, is the ultimate act of maliciousness, cruelty and stupidity.’
Home Secretary Sajid Javid suggested Mr Corbyn should quit, saying the leader of any other major party would have done so by now.
Jonathan Goldstein, chairman of the
‘A savage crime against humanity’
HOW LEADER DEFENDED HIMSELF
‘I laid a wreath to all those that had died in the air attack that took place on Tunis.’
Sky News interview, May 2017..
. . . AND FACTS THAT DAMN HIM
Three years earlier, in the communist Morning Star, he wrote: ‘Wreaths were laid to mark the 1985 bombing of the PLO HQ and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991’
Pictures show him directly in front of plaque honouring graves of Black September members – and around 15 yards from the monument to air strike victims
A wreath identical to the one he is pictured with is later seen on the plaque that honours terrorists linked to the Munich attacks
The names of the terrorists are also inscribed on the monument to victims of the air strike
Jewish Leadership Council, said the revelations in the Mail were ‘despicable’.
He added: ‘It is reprehensible that the man who wishes to be our prime minister honoured ruthless terrorists who committed an act described by the late King Hussein of Jordan as “a savage crime against humanity”.
‘This man is not fit to be a member of parliament, let alone a national leader.
‘He has spent his entire political career cavorting with conspiracy theorists, terrorists and revolutionaries who seek to undo all the good for which our ancestors have given their lives. In so many ways, enough is enough.’
Labour MP Joan Ryan, chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, said: ‘These pictures appear to show Jeremy Corbyn standing at the grave of the founder of the terrorist group which cold-bloodedly murdered 11 Israeli athletes at Munich.
‘He must now both urgently explain why he chose to honour such a man and unreservedly apologise to the families of the innocent sportsmen who were butchered in the most horrific manner.’
Another Labour MP said: ‘Jeremy’s past is catching up with him. He’s spent the last 40 years supporting or defending all sorts of extremists and in some cases terrorists and anti-Semites.
‘It is shocking to discover that less than a year before he became Labour leader he said himself he was present when wreaths were laid at the graves of the Black September terrorists who murdered athletes at the Olympics.’
Sources close to Mr Corbyn have insisted he was at the service to commemorate only the air strike victims. But their monument is 15 yards from where Mr Corbyn is pictured – and in a different part of the cemetery complex. Instead he was in front of a plaque that lies beside the graves of Black September members. It honours Salah Khalaf, who founded Black September; his key aide Fakhri al-Omari; and also Hayel Abdel-Hamid, PLO chief of security.
Adjacent to their graves is that of Atef Bseiso, a PLO intelligence chief who has been linked to the Munich atrocity.
In an October 2014 article for the communist Morning Star recording his visit to the Tunisian cemetery, Mr Corbyn said wreaths were laid to mark the 1985 bombing but also ‘on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991’.
There appears to be no record of Mossad having carried out an assassination in Paris in 1991. However, Khalaf, Abdel-Hamid and al-Omari were assassinated that year. Mossad is accused of killing Bseiso in Paris in 1992.
Labour’s insistence that Mr Corbyn did not honour those involved in the Munich massacre last night is further undermined because the names of Khalaf, Abdel-Hamid and al-Omari are also inscribed on the monument to the air strike. Pictures and videos posted on the Facebook page of the Palestinian embassy in Tunisia over several years show that a wreath is routinely put on the plaque honouring Khalaf, Abdel-Hamid and al-Omari.
Yesterday when the Daily Mail posed a series of questions about the visit to the cemetery, a Labour source said: ‘We have got nothing to say beyond what we have already said.’
The Munich row comes amid controversy over Labour’s refusal to adopt in full an international definition of anti-Semitism, including a list of examples of antiSemitic behaviour.
Three senior union leaders – from the GMB, Unison and Usdaw – have added their voices to calls from deputy leader Tom Watson for the complete International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance text to be incorporated into Labour’s new code of conduct on anti-Semitism.
A Labour Party spokesman said it had agreed to re-open the development of the code, in consultation with Jewish community organisations and groups.
Writing in the Sunday Mirror, shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: ‘Both Jeremy Corbyn and I have made clear that racism and anti-Semitism have no place in the Labour Party.’