'The Labor Party Shifted so Far Left, but Not All of It is Anti-Semitic'– Author

UK Jewish groups have protested against Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn outside of Parliament. This comes as the opposition leader has been accused of failing to tackle anti-Semitism in the Labor Party. Earlier, reports emerged that in 2012 Corbyn questioned a decision by London authorities to remove an anti-Jewish mural in the city’s east end.

Radio Sputnik discussed this with Dr. Denis MacEoin, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the New York Gatestone Institute. He has for many years written and lectured in support of Israel and is presently writing a book about how the country is badly misunderstood and attacked.

Sputnik: How serious is anti-semitism in British politics?

Dr. Denis MacEoin: There was a demonstration in London. There has been a concern for several years now both within the Jewish community and among people like myself who are just simply supporters of Israel, that the Labor Party has developed a strong element of anti-Semitism. It should be worth explaining that this works in more than one way. There’s a traditional, classic anti-Semitism that the Jews are involved in a conspiracy against various countries, or the Jews control the media, or the Jews are in some very classical way just simply evil people so. But in addition to that, it’s very important to stress that back in 2016 the Informational Holocaust Memorial association published a new definition of anti-Semitism and this definition has been adopted by about 32 or so countries.

READ MORE: Corbyn Ally Christine Shawcroft Resigns Over Labour Party Anti-Semitism Scandal

And this is very clear that on the one hand, yes, there’s all sorts of classical anti-Semitism and that includes obviously making as they say mendacious dehumanizing, demonizing or stereotypical allegations about Jews. I mean, accusing the Jews as a people or Israel as a state of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust, accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example, claiming the existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavour. And several other things like that. This is where Labor has fallen into disrepute. Because from where Labor has originally been, of course, it’s now been taken over by very far-left ideologues like Jeremy Corbyn for whom Israel is seen as the evil state. For whom the Palestinians are always the victims.

Sputnik: How can you really say that an entire party is anti-Semitic and do you feel that because Jeremy Corbyn has shown support for the state of Palestine and criticized Israel does that really make him anti-Semitic?

Dr. Denis MacEoin: To start with, it’s not the whole of the Labor Party by any means. It is more a problem that the Labor Party which was originally very supportive of Israel has shifted over the past few years from Corbyn and a lot of his more far-left supporters and has shifted into this definition. It’s not that you can’t criticize Israel, that’s not in itself anti-Semitic. That’s not the problem and it didn’t happen before with the Labor Party. But the Labor Party has shifted so far left that they have brought in the notion that they must support the Palestinians regardless of what the Palestinians do and they must ultimately support even the other enemies of Israel. And this becomes anti-Semitic because it is denying the Jewish people a right to have a state of their own.

Sputnik: Why do you think it is at this particular time that we’re seeing these accusations toward Corbyn? Some are saying that this could be a smear attack on him. Do you think that there’s any truth in that at all?

Dr. Denis MacEoin: No, I mean I don’t see where the smear has started a couple of years ago when there had to be a parliamentary investigation into Labor anti-Semitism and they produced a report which was called simply a whitewash, so that’s been on the agenda ready for.

Sputnik: What was the result of that parliamentary investigation?

Dr. Denis MacEoin: It was condemned very strongly there’s even a book about it. I had read that report and I really was shocked by how they simply had not entered evenly actual debate with the Parliamentary Committee and it was quite, they were fudging everything and not accepting there were actually genuine problems.

Sputnik: So, why is it if there’s just the Labor Party that opposing parties who make up the Parliament didn’t look into these accusations, into the accusations against the Labor Party? And was this particularly against Corbyn at that time?

Dr. Denis MacEoin: It certainly felt to have started under Corbyn to become much stronger. There had been elements of it before, of course.

Sputnik: Corbyn actually recently spoke against Britain for criticizing Russia and its alleged involvement in the poisoning issue before the international results were really published or made known or the investigation by the OPCW was completed. Could these be linked at all?

Dr. Denis MacEoin: No. Simply because this complaint about the Labor Party, often from members of the Labor Party and MPs in the Labor Party, started years ago. So it has nothing whatever to do with the current poisoning episode.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.