Labor’s Anti-Semitism Plague
B ritain’s Labor Party, by its own admission, has an anti-Semitism problem. So, to some extent, does the US Democratic Party, some of whose members have openly associated with Louis Farrakhan.
But in Labor’s case, the problem involves the party’s leader and candidate for prime minister, Jeremy Corbyn. And it goes far beyond just associating with hatemongers.
Corbyn, an avowed hard-left activist, has turned a blind eye not just to anti-Jewish attacks on Israel, but to the kind of caricatures that were a staple of Nazi Germany.
Nor are his supporters holding him to account — because, says former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, “the people around Jeremy Corbyn, maybe even himself, don’t think it’s a problem.”
By a top Labor official’s own account, more than 150 party officials, candidates and legislators have been expelled or forced to resign over the expression of hateful views since Corbyn took over in 2015 — and 70 more cases are outstanding.
But it’s Corbyn himself — and the repeated examples of his blind eye to antiSemitism and anti-Semites — who remains most troubling.
It recently came out that in 2012 he opposed removing a mural depicting hooknosed Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor. He now says he was defending free speech but should’ve looked “more closely at the image.”
He’s been a member of five Facebook groups whose members routinely share anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. Corbyn says he never noticed it.
Nor is he alone: London’s Sunday Times just broke fresh news of a dozen Corbyn aides who belong to Facebook groups where anti-Semitic posts are common. And a top senior Labor official resigned last week after calling for reinstatement of a local candidate who’d stepped down after endorsing an article that claimed the Holocaust was a hoax.
Labor MPs who’ve raised the issue are subjected to online abuse and an all-toopopular petition claiming they’re part of a “smear campaign” controlled by a “very powerful special-interest group.”
A now-contrite Corbyn says it’s easy to recognize anti-Semitism abroad but “harder . . . when it is closer to home.” Especially when you shut your eyes tight.