British Jews Have Reason to Fear Corbyn’s Labour Party The opposition leader has called Hamas terrorists ‘brothers’ and disparaged even domestic ‘Zionists.’ By Dovid Efune
https://www.wsj.com/articles/british-jews-have-reason-to-fear-corbyns
Lord Jonathan Sacks isn’t known to throw around accusations. So when the Commonwealth’s former chief rabbi weighed in on Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, people took notice.
Rabbi Sacks last week described Mr. Corbyn as “an anti-Semite” who has “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate.” He called one Corbyn comment “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech,” a vicious anti-immigration diatribe. Rabbi Sacks was referring to Mr. Corbyn’s 2013 description of British “Zionists”: “They don’t want to study history and . . . they don’t understand English irony either.” On Sunday Rabbi Sacks doubled down, telling the BBC that the prospect of Mr. Corbyn as prime minister was a “danger” to British Jewry.
In July, 68 leading U.K. rabbis had written an open letter to the Guardian accusing Labour’s leadership of ignoring the Jewish community and the “severe and widespread” anti-Semitism plaguing the party. Shortly after, in an unprecedented move, the country’s three leading Jewish newspapers published joint cover stories describing the potential of a Corbyn-led government as an “existential threat to Jewish life” in Britain.
Some members of Mr. Corbyn’s own party have been unforgiving. A day after Rabbi Sacks’s remarks were published, Labour veteran Frank Field resigned from the party’s group in Parliament over the issue. Another senior party member, Dame Margaret Hodge, furiously confronted Mr. Corbyn in July and called him a “racist and anti-Semite.” Dozens of other party leaders have expressed outrage over the matter.
But Mr. Corbyn and his acolytes are having none of it—and have engaged in concerted efforts to undermine their critics.
A Labour spokesman called Rabbi Sacks’s comments “absurd and offensive.” The party briefly put Ms. Hodge under investigation. Labourites who participated in a March protest over anti-Semitism were accused of attempting to smear the party leader and were threatened with dismissal from the party via a process known as “deselection.” A letter endorsed by thousands of Corbyn supporters alleged that the gathering was the work of a “very powerful special interest group.” For his part, Mr. Corbyn claimed in an interview: “I’m not an anti-Semite in any way, never have been, never will be.” CONTINUE AT SITE
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