Day Corbyn gave speech at wedding of PLO man in Holocaust denial row
Picture that will plunge Labour leader into new anti- Semitism storm
JEREMY Corbyn was embroiled in a fresh anti-Semitism row last night after it was revealed that he gave a wedding speech for an alleged Holocaust ‘denier’.
The Labour leader, who has been battling to contain the furore which has been raging in his party for weeks, paid tribute to Husam Zomlot, who was at the centre of a furious row when he appeared to suggest that Israel had ‘fabricated’ the Holocaust.
Mr Zomlot, 44, told the BBC in 2014: ‘They [Israel] are fabricating all these stories about beheading journalists in Iraq… as if they are fabricating also the story of the Holocaust, that it happened in Europe.’
It triggered an outcry among Jewish groups, although Mr Zomlot strongly denied that he meant that details of the Holocaust had been fabricated. He said his words were meant to convey that Israel was using both the Holocaust and the murder of Western journalists by Islamic State to ‘justify its murder of Palestine’.
He made t he i nf l a mmatory remarks shortly after IS posted a video of the beheading of an American photographer James Foley.
Mr Zomlot has also said Israel was founded on the ‘skulls of our nation’ and accused the country of an ‘ethnic cleansing campaign’.
A picture obtained by The Mail on Sunday shows Mr Corbyn speaking at Mr Zomlot’s marriage to wife Susan, five years before the MP became Labour leader.
Mr Zomlot, who now heads the general delegation of the PLO to the United States, met Mr Corbyn when he was the ‘Ambassador-at-Large’ at the Palestinian Diplomatic Mission in the UK a decade ago. When Mr Corbyn addressed the Palestine Solidarity Campaign national conference in 2010, he was applauded for describing Zomlot as his ‘close friend’ and for thanking him for his ‘work in support of the solidarity movement’.
A Labour Party spokesman said: ‘Jeremy has been a longstanding supporter of Palestinian rights. He supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and a negotiated settlement that delivers peace and security for both peoples.
‘Husam Zomlot is a leading Palestinian political figure and effectively ambassador to the US, having played the same role in Britain.
‘He has made clear he is not a Holocaust denier – and did so in the same BBC broadcast that is the subject of controversy.
‘Jeremy attended his wedding in London in 2010, along with a wide range of British and other international diplomats.’
Yesterday it was revealed that Mr Corbyn had attended a service to honour Palestinian ‘martyrs’ at a cemetery in Tunisia, just feet from the graves of terror leaders linked to the Munich massacre in 1972.
Mr Corbyn has battled to contain the row over alleged instances of anti- Semitism by f ri ends and followers and has been accused of f ai l i ng to t ackle anti- Semitic elements within his party.