The British Left’s Jewish Problem

British politics, and British Jewry in particular, received a shock in 2015 when Jeremy Corbyn won the contest to become leader of the Labor party, a position he retains despite a dramatic attempt to oust him this past September—a so-called coup that turned out to be a total bust. It was a noble effort, to be sure, by the center-left establishment to rid itself of the unreconstructed old-style socialist representing what everyone thought to be the party’s far-left fringe, thankfully long suppressed. This time, however, Corbyn not only won but was reconfirmed in power with a greater majority. As for British Jews, who for some time have been feeling uncomfortable about the direction in which Labor has been headed, this re-election does nothing to halt their gradual drift toward voting Conservative.

It bears repeating that Corbyn ought not be considered an anti-Semite himself. But the larger issue is that he comes from, and is the figurehead of, a wing of British politics that, if not anti-Semitic, has embraced an otherwise indistinguishable anti-Zionism that has begun to seep into the Labor party as a whole. This is an enterprise in which Corbyn has been engaged for decades.

Consider: Corbyn was there throughout the 1980s, sponsoring and supporting the Labor Movement Campaign for Palestine, whose objective was to “eradicate Zionism” from the party. He was there in March 2001, opposing a law that would have banned membership in or support of foreign terrorist organizations, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He was there in April 2002 at a demonstration for Palestine where Hizballah flags were in abundance and some marchers dressed as suicide bombers. He was there in December 2003, at the second Cairo Anti-War Conference, whose declaration stated that the American campaign in Iraq was part of a Zionist plot to establish a Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates. He was there in 2009, calling Hizballah and Hamas his “friends” and in the same year, after visiting Syria and meeting with Bashar al-Assad, writing that “the Israeli tail wags the U.S. dog.”