UK Jewish groups accuse Labour leader of harboring anti-Semites

Jewish organizations in the UK are up in arms over Labour Party leadership’s “repeated institutional failure” to address anti-Jewish prejudice.

By: World Israel News Staff and AP

Jewish groups in the United Kingdom are protesting the country’s main opposition leader’s failure to stamp out anti-Semitism within his left-of-center party.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council charge that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has shown a “repeated institutional failure” to address anti-Jewish prejudice.

In an open letter, they said that “again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews.”

The groups planned to protest outside Parliament on Monday before a meeting with Labour lawmakers.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a UK-based anti-Semitism watchdog) has denounced Corbyn to the Labour Party in a comprehensive disciplinary complaint.

The complaint, which was released on Monday, charges Corbyn with bringing the Labour Party into “disrepute for dismissing anti-Semitism.” It also denounces Corbyn over his membership and participation in the anti-Semitic “Palestine Live” Facebook group, his alleged continued membership in the anti-Semitic “History of Palestine” Facebook group, and his statements about a second inquiry into Ken Livingstone’s comments about Hitler supporting Zionists.

Labour ‘complicity with and promotion’ of anti-Semitism

Joseph D. Glassman, Head of Political and Government Investigations at CAA, accused the Labour Party, its MPs and institutions, of “complicity with and promotion of anti-Semitic racism.”

“Most Labour MPs, with heroic exceptions, have merely wrung their hands and spoken fine words without at any point acting or putting themselves at risk,” he further alleged.

Gideon Falter, Chairman of CAA, said that “under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party has been seized by racists. Jeremy Corbyn is at home amongst them, having spent his political career seeking out and giving his backing to Holocaust deniers, genocidal anti-Semitic terrorist groups, wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and a litany of Jew-haters.”

“This is the point of no return: Britain must stand up for its Jewish community against the racists in control of the Labour Party. Future generations are watching: to be silent is to condone,” he underscored.

Allegations of Labour anti-Semitism have grown since Corbyn, who is pro-Palestinian and Pro-Hamas, was elected leader of Britain’s main opposition party in 2015.

Some in the party say Corbyn, a longtime critic of Israeli actions against the Palestinians, has allowed abuse to go unchecked.

The latest furor erupted over a six-year-old Facebook post by Corbyn supporting the artist behind a street mural that included anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Corbyn has said he regrets not looking closely at the “deeply disturbing and anti-Semitic” mural before offering support to the artist.

Corbyn said in a statement that Labour must show “total commitment to excising pockets of anti-Semitism that exist in and around our party.”

UK’s record-high number of anti-Semitic incidents

The United Kingdom experienced a record-high number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2017, this according to a report published by the UK’s Community Security Trust’s (CST) in February.

In a 2017 survey, one-third of British Jews expressed fear over mounting anti-Semitic crime and the failure to remove anti-Semites from politics. Many have considered leaving Britain altogether within the past two years, according to data published by the CAA in August.

A survey of 2,025 British Jews shows that only 59 percent feel welcome in the UK; 17 percent feel unwelcome. Over the past two years, 37 percent of British Jews have concealed any Jewish symbols in public.