To Islamists, Jeremy Corbyn is just a useful idiot
The Labour leader claims to want peace in the Middle East, but only ever speaks to one side
We all know Jeremy Corbyn likes hobnobbing with people many others consider to be terrorists. But it is only just becoming clear how much he likes it, as details of previously unreported meetings and visits surface.
When confronted with the evidence of his close association with senior figures from Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizbollah, and his presence in Tunis at the 2014 wreath laying for Palestinians killed by Israel, including those responsible for the 1974 Munich atrocity, Corbyn says he does it all for Middle Eastern peace: if only we’d all talk to each other more, there would be no more conflict.
Fine words. But perhaps Corbyn might start by explaining how exactly his meetings with these groups, his clear sympathies with at least some of their aims and activities, and his public support for them has helped promote the peace he claims to want – though has failed so far to achieve. Those of us who have spent years navigating the political quicksands of the Middle East peace process can all learn from a man with something new to offer. And Corbyn must have something new, because otherwise he would also have spoken at least as often to the Israeli government. Yet he seems never to have done so, any more than he has made much effort to speak to Ulster Unionists. Why not? He keeps saying you need to speak to both sides. But he only ever seems to speak to one.
When Hamas won the last Palestinian legislative council elections, in January 2006, I was British consul-general in Jerusalem. Progressive opinion immediately demanded that the West should abandon its policy of decades, talk directly to the new Palestinian government and continue funding it – irrespective of its commitment to the politics of physical force, including suicide bombings and other terror acts, its refusal to recognise Israel, its rejection of instructions from the Palestinian president and its structural anti-Semitism.
And yet the only thing that ever really mattered was for Hamas to talk to Israel. There is no evidence that Western governments or individuals talking to Hamas had the slightest effect on its policies, any more than our talking to Hizbollah in Lebanon, the violent Shia militias in Iraq or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had the slightest effect on them. The reverse was the case. These organisations used those who talked to them as useful idiots, persuading them against all the evidence that they were committed to peace while continuing to do what they had always done and believe what they had always believed: that the problems they faced could be resolved at the right time through force.
We see this again now, with reported talks in Cairo between Hamas and Israel, mediated by Egypt and the UN. Hamas, which has tweaked but not repudiated its founding covenant and tactically sought to distance itself from its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood, wants to consolidate its oppressive rule in Gaza. To achieve this it needs to speak to power, not dim backbenchers. And it recognises that power lies with Israel. If that results in the marginalisation of the Palestinian Authority, the body constituted under the internationally recognised Oslo Accords (and with whom Corbyn again does not apparently engage), so much the better.
It is important to remember how Hamas worked to undermine the Oslo process. The terror campaign of 1993-96 contributed to the rise of the Israeli radical Right, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the then Israeli prime minister, and the failure of Shimon Peres to win the 1996 election. Meanwhile, Hizbollah – dedicated to holding the Lebanese state hostage and the mother ship for all other Hizbollah movements in the region, from Iraq (where it trained groups which killed British and US soldiers) through Bahrain to eastern Saudi Arabia and Yemen – has been a central player in the destruction of peace in Syria. Yet Corbyn has called them – like Hamas – friends.
It may be that I too don’t get Corbyn’s exquisite irony (antiSemitism as the new anti-racism: who knew?). But for anyone with a normal moral compass, it is hard not to think that Corbyn’s account of his activities is deliberately evasive and deeply troubling. He can clear all this up tomorrow by releasing records of his meetings and revealing himself as the man of peace he claims to be. If he doesn’t, many may unfortunately conclude that he’s just another delusional, virtue-signalling, right-on poseur.