Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s Labour Party, is under pressure from a backlash against his flirtation with anti-Semitism.
While Corbyn has always danced close to the line on anti-Semitic viewpoints, his newest challenge flows from comments Corbyn made in 2012 which have just come to light. Enter Labour Member of Parliament Luciana Berger. As Berger pointed out on Twitter, Corbyn has been busted for endorsing an obviously anti-Semitic cartoon.
I asked the Leader’s Office for an explanation about this Facebook post first thing this morning. I’m still waiting for a response. pic.twitter.com/DL8ynBtES4
— Luciana Berger (@lucianaberger) March 23, 2018
While Corbyn claims he did not look closely enough at the cartoon and has since apologized for his comment, few observers are buying it.
After all, the cartoon is vintage anti-Semitism and Corbyn’s reference to the Rockefeller family (who many, wrongly, presume to be Jewish), does not seem coincidental.
Yet regardless of the Rockefeller comment, Corbyn’s “good company” embrace of the cartoon is by itself striking. Just look at the cartoon’s imagery: big-nosed elitists playing monopoly on the back of downtrodden slaves and under the watchful Illuminati eye. Contrast the figures in the cartoon with 1930s Nazi Der Sturmer cartoons.
Correspondingly, and in the context of high-profile anti-Semitic comments from other Labour Party figures and supporters over the past few years, Corbyn is now under major pressure.
On Monday, high-profile Labour MPs joined a protest organized by Britain’s Jewish community outside Parliament and the controversy is now the U.K.’s top news story.
That said, Corbyn only has himself to blame, because the cartoon is just one piece in the parchment of his past conduct.
Corbyn has long been avowedly hostile to Israel, calling for investigations into Israeli lobbying efforts and referring to Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah as his “friends.” He also earned tens of thousands of dollars serving as a host on Iran’s propaganda channel, Press TV.
This does not play terribly well to the many British Jews who are aware, as Corbyn is, that the Hamas charter is defined by anti-Semitism, even referencing the ludicrous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Further complicating matters for the Labour leader is the fact that he has surrounded himself with individuals who want to boycott the Jewish nation and who revel in conspiracy theories against it. Take Corbyn’s top adviser, Andrew Murray, who in 2012 referred to hidden “props” of Israel power pursuing “a new world order.” Murray warned Israel it was “digging [its] own grave.”
As I say, Corbyn is now reaping the whirlwind.
