Labour leader with an unbridled passion for condemning Israeli policy

Drawing parallels between events of the past and those of today are increasingly isolating Jeremy Corbyn

‘The unspeakable crimes of the past against Jewish people cannot justify the crimes of the present by the state of Israel’

‘US foreign policy and Mr Obama collapsed in front of the APAC lobby and the Israeli lobby. That is an indication of the power of Israel’

Over the course of a parliamentary career spanning four decades, Jeremy Corbyn has forged powerful alliances on the back of his vociferous criticism of Israel. A long-standing patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, founded months before his election in 1983, his rise is intertwined with an unbridled opposition to Israeli policy and the treatment of the Palestinian people, whom, he says, remain interned in a “massive prison camp”.

Since taking the helm as Labour leader, Mr Corbyn’s association with the Palestinian cause – and those who agitate on its behalf – has become a subject of growing controversy. While he has weathered revelations about his brushes with anti-semites, this week, details of a meeting in Parliament in which speakers equated Israel with the Nazis on Holocaust Memorial Day, have left him increasingly isolated.

Already castigated by moderate backbenchers, some of whom are contemplating their future in Labour, even his closest allies are growing frustrated at the party’s failure to stamp out anti-semitism.

The Daily Telegraph can now reveal that Mr Corbyn has in recent years shared platforms with speakers who have called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and for a third intifada in Palestine. In appearances at rallies and in newspaper articles, he himself has drawn comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel, which some critics claim would contravene an internationally recognised definition of anti-semitism.

As an example, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, whose code of conduct Labour refused to adopt, states that comparisons of “Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” should be considered anti-semitic. At a rally in London in 2010, Mr Corbyn suggested the blockade of the Gaza Strip had gone on for as long as the “siege of Leningrad and Stalingrad”, a reference to two bloody battles of the Second World War. Speaking outside the Israeli Embassy, he suggested the blockade of Palestinian territory was a type of “war crime”, but this time taking place on live television.

George Galloway, the former Labour MP, called the Israeli embassy a “nest of criminals”, claiming: “We don’t want these murderers, these terrorists, in the heart of London.”

Mr Corbyn spoke at an event for the charity Interpal the same year, saying “the power” of the so-called Israel lobby was “truly phenomenal”. In video taken at a London hotel and seen by this newspaper, he said: “President Obama made a very, very timid suggestion that there should be a freeze on settlements by Israel on the West Bank. Netanyahu [Israel’s prime minister] said he wasn’t going to do that. Within weeks, the might of US foreign policy and Mr Obama collapsed in front of the APAC lobby and the Israeli lobby. That is an indication of how powerful Israel is.”

The Telegraph also uncovered an article by Mr Corbyn in the Morning Star in which he again drew parallels between the Hitler regime and Israel. Comparing the Palestinian cause to the Spanish resistance against the Nazi-supported Franco regime in the Thirties, he stated “the unspeakable crimes of the past against Jewish people cannot justify the crimes of the present by the state of Israel.”

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said the leader was making no such comparison, adding it was well known that organisations lobbied “in support of Israel in US politics”. Two years later, Mr Corbyn appeared at the Al Quds Day march, which Jewish activists say is “anti-semitic” and often attended by men with Hizbollah flags.

In his address, he said “apartheid” was “being introduced all over the West Bank” and demanded the free trade agreement between Israel and the EU be torn up. He was preceded by Sheikh Mohammed Bahmanpour, a London-based Islamic cleric, who declared: “Iran does not need to wipe Israel off the map, because it will wipe itself off the map. The reign of Israel is over, the age of oppression is over.”

While Mr Corbyn admitted he stood “on platforms with people whose views I completely reject”, questions were raised about his association with Paul Eisen, the Holocaust denier. The Telegraph last year found Mr Corbyn had a decade-long association with Deir Yassin Remembered, a group containing Holocaust deniers and revisionists, including Mr Eisen.

There is no suggestion Mr Corbyn shares their views, and while he admits attending events, he said Mr Eisen was not a “Holocaust denier” when they first met. A Labour spokesman said: “Like all politicians, he has appeared on platforms with people he disagrees with and he doesn’t share these views.”