I gave Corbyn the benefit of the doubt on antisemitism. I can’t any more | Simon Hattenstone

The Labour leader’s comments about ‘Zionists’ in a 2013 speech were unquestionably antisemiticI have repeatedly defended Jeremy Corbyn against charges of antisemitism. When my neighbour told me the Labour leader was a Jew hater because he had supported the graffiti artist responsible for the hooked-nose, trope-tastic antisemitic mural, I said Corbyn was so anti-racist that he probably didn’t even notice the caricatures – and that he was hopeless at detail, anyway. When photos were released showing him posing with a wreath to commemorate Palestinian martyrs at a cemetery in Tunisia, I said of course he was there – they were killed by an Israeli bomb attack on Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in 1985 that even Margaret Thatcher’s government condemned. When he refused to sign up to the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism, I argued that the definition was problematic, and it was important to be able to say Israel was racist without being labelled an antisemite. And on it went.But not any more. I still don’t believe (or would like not to believe) that he is an antisemite, but what the Labour leader said at a London conference convened by the Palestinian Return Centre in 2013, is unquestionably antisemitic. Continue reading…
Via: I gave Corbyn the benefit of the doubt on antisemitism. I can’t any more | Simon Hattenstone