Lipstadt attacks Labour
JEREMY CORBYN’S Labour Party is responsible for the rise of “softcore Holocaust denial”, Shoah expert Deborah Lipstadt has claimed.
Speaking at the Holocaust Educational Trust conference in Westminster on Monday, Dr Lipstadt said antisemitism had become “embedded” in Labour and that it was now more socially acceptable to “make a crack” about Jews at a dinner party.
Dr Lipstadt, who won a landmark legal battle against Holocaust denier David Irving in 2000, said that victory had weakened what she described as “hardcore” Holocaust denial.
Now, however, she had witnessed a “softcore” form of the same problem.
Arguing that Labour had played a part in that development, she said: “You have a former mayor here in London [Ken Livingstone] who would talk about the co-operation between the Zionists and the Nazis.
“But it’s more than that. It’s a form of antisemitism. That’s the kind of softcore denial I worry about much more. It’s subtly antisemitic and it’s clearly denial because it rewrites history.”
She also suggested Mr Corbyn was at best “blind to overt manifestations of antisemitism”, referencing his questioning of a council’s decision to destroy an antisemitic mural depicteing a group of Jewish bankers counting money.
Dr Lipstadt also suggested softcore Holocaust denial cropped up in conversations relating to Israel.
She said: “To talk about a genocide, or to talk about the Nazi-like tactics of the Israeli army, is ludicrous. Every army makes mistakes, every army does things wrong. There are things the Israeli army does wrong, but to compare it to Nazis is softcore denial.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Jeremy Corbyn has been absolutely clear he is a militant opponent of antisemitism and is committed to driving it out of politics and our society.
“Labour has deep roots in the Jewish community and is campaigning to increase support and confidence in our Party among Jewish people in the UK.”