Former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks has called Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite, saying the Labour leader’s comment about Zionists at a 2013 conference was the most offensive statement by a senior UK politician since Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech.
In an interview with the New Statesman, Sacks, who was the UK’s chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, said Corbyn had given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map.
He said: Now, within living memory of the Holocaust, and while Jews are being murdered elsewhere in Europe for being Jews, we have an antisemite as the leader of the Labour party and Her Majesty’s opposition. That is why Jews feel so threatened by Mr Corbyn and those who support him.
Sacks condemned Corbyn’s 2013 comments, which resurfaced last week, in which he said that a group of Zionists had no sense of irony despite having lived in this country for a very long time.
The remarks prompted criticism from a number of MPs. In a subsequent statement, Corbyn said he had used the word Zionist in the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people, adding that he was now more careful in how he used the term.
But Sacks told the New Statesman he was aghast at the remarks, making a parallel with Powell’s infamous 1968 speech, in which the then-Conservative shadow cabinet member roundly condemned for inflammatory rhetoric about immigration.
It was divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.
He continued: We can only judge Jeremy Corbyn by his words and his actions. He has given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate, who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map.
When he implies that, however long they have lived here, Jews are not fully British, he is using the language of classic prewar European antisemitism.
Sacks said: For more than three and a half centuries, the Jews of Britain have contributed to every aspect of national life. We know our history better than Mr Corbyn, and we have learned that the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. Mr Corbyn’s embrace of hate defiles our politics and demeans the country we love.
In his 2013 speech to a meeting convened by the Palestinian Return Centre, Corbyn spoke about the importance of history and of how necessary it was for people to understand the origins of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Corbyn then added: This was dutifully recorded by the, thankfully silent, Zionists who were in the audience on that occasion, and then came up and berated him afterwards for what he had said.
They clearly have two problems. One is that they don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, don’t understand English irony either. Manuel does understand English irony, and uses it very effectively. So I think they needed two lessons, which we can perhaps help them with.