Jewish community rebuffs Corbyn olive branch

JEREMY Corbyn’s efforts to build bridges with the Jewish community have been rebuffed by critics as Labour’s anti-Semitism row drags on.

The Labour leader insisted he will root out anti-Semites from Labour and acknowledged mistakes in the way the party had handled the crisis.

But the Jewish Labour Movement said trust had broken down with the party leadership, while the Campaign Against Antisemitism lashed out at Mr Corbyn’s failure to apologise for his own conduct.

Mr Corbyn said the party had been too slow in dealing with complaints and should have consulted the Jewish community before drawing up a code of conduct that failed to fully reproduce an internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism and its examples.

But he insisted that it was his priority to drive anti-Semitism out of the party for good and rebuild trust between Labour and Jewish voters.

At the end of a bruising week which has seen complaints about his behav- iour and a request for the human rights watchdog to investigate the Labour Party, Mr Corbyn said: “No one can, or should, try to dismiss or belittle the concerns expressed by so many Jewish people and organisations about what has been happening in the party I am proud to lead.”

But after three leading Jewish newspapers jointly published a scathing leader column about Mr Corbyn’s party, the Labour leader rejected their “overheated rhetoric”.

However, he acknowledged there was a “real problem that Labour is working to overcome”.

Mr Corbyn acknowledged Labour had been “too slow in processing disciplinary cases of anti-Semitic abuse” but insisted that was changing.

Writing in the Guardian, he said: “Labour staff have seen examples of Holocaust denial, crude stereotypes of Jewish bankers, conspiracy theories blaming 9/11 on Israel...

“People holding those views have no place in the Labour Party.”