Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the UK Labour Party: Anti-Semitic or Not?

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK Labour Party, has always denied that he paid tribute to the group 'Black September' during his trip to Tunisia in 2014, a group responsible for the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Images published by the Daily Mail on Friday, August 9, show Jeremy Corbyn holding a wreath in a cemetery that the newspaper claims is the burial site of known 'Black September' operatives. With the release of these images, the controversy over the Labour leader's anti-Israeli stance has resurfaced; some British supporters of Israel and Jews, like most Israelis, have again raised the question of whether Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. Mr. Corbyn traveled to Tunisia a year before he was elected as the leader of the Labour Party. According to the Daily Mail, the photos show him at the grave of Atef Bseiso, an operative of the Palestine Liberation Organization and one of the architects of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Corbyn's supporters claimed that he was paying tribute to the souls of 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli bombing, not to the 'Black September' operatives. The Israeli army bombed the PLO headquarters in Tunisia in 1985 in an air operation they called 'Operation Wooden Leg' to incapacitate PLO activists; 47 Palestinians were killed in that bombing. The graves of these victims are located 60 meters from the grave of Atef Bseiso; the Daily Mail rejected the supporters' claims, emphasizing that Corbyn was standing at Bseiso's grave and in one of the photos, he has his hands open like Muslims who are reciting prayers. Corbyn's supporters argued that he merely wanted to behave like others in the gathering, which is why he opened his hands in the prayer position of Muslims; the Daily Mail also rejected this justification. The images were first published by the Palestinian embassy in Tunisia on their Facebook page; in these photos, Jeremy Corbyn is apparently standing under a red canopy opened over the burial site of the 'Black September' operatives alongside others, most of whom are Palestinians and members of the PLO. The graves of Salah Khalaf, the founder of 'Black September', Fakhri al-Omari, Khalaf's advisor, and Hael Abdul Hamid, another PLO operative killed in operations attributed to the Israeli Mossad, are located at this site. According to Western media reports, the Mossad has been instructed since Golda Meir's premiership in the 1970s to find and kill every individual involved in the assassination of Israeli athletes in Munich. These reports, which Israeli media still publish not independently but by referencing Western media, indicate that years after Meir's premiership, Mossad operations continued. In 1991 in Paris, Salah Khalaf, Fakhri al-Omari, and Hael Abdul Hamid were killed, and a year later, Atef Bseiso was also assassinated in Paris. Corbyn's visit to Tunisia four years ago was brought up again during last year's UK election campaign, and he stated that he honored the victims of Israeli operations and went to Tunisia 'alongside many people at a gathering in hope of peace, which is the only way to unite people and engage in dialogue.' Jennifer Gerber, an Israeli lobby activist in the Labour Party, stated, 'It is hard to believe that someone would want to pay tribute to the terrorists responsible for the murder of Israeli athletes, but the truth is that this behavior of Jeremy Corbyn is not surprising, and many in this party find this behavior disgusting.' Gideon Falter, an anti-Semitism activist in the UK, criticized Corbyn, saying, 'A responsible politician should not even approach a place where such a ceremony was to be held; however, Corbyn is not a responsible politician.' The Daily Mail's images were published while internal calls for his resignation from the Labour Party due to his 'extreme anti-Israeli' positions were raised again last week. Last week, videos of Jeremy Corbyn surfaced in which he referred to the Palestinian Hamas movement as 'my friends' eight years ago and again six years ago; in one of these videos, he compared the destruction caused by the Israeli army's operations in Gaza to the destruction of Stalingrad during World War II, which supporters of Israel regarded as a 'comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany.' In 2010, at a demonstration of Palestinians and their supporters near the Israeli embassy in London, Corbyn stated, 'Three months ago during my visit to Gaza, I saw the destroyed offices of the UN, burned schools, ruined houses, and destroyed lives; people whose siege has driven an entire generation insane; prisons, and a siege that is like the siege of Leningrad and Stalingrad; these are war crimes.' Mr. Corbyn defended himself after these revelations, emphasizing that the Labour Party has never posed a danger to the Jewish community in Britain. Jeremy Bernard Corbyn, 69, has been an enthusiastic activist in trade unions since 1973 and has held parliamentary membership since 1983, taking over the leadership of the Labour Party in September 2015 after Ed Miliband. He has always been one of the figures of the left wing of the Labour Party, strongly opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the attack on Syria; he has also been against any military attack on Iran and has been active in Amnesty International for decades. Mr. Corbyn has always been accused by his rivals of being 'anti-Israeli' and even 'anti-Jewish' due to his open support for Palestinian positions and interactions with various Palestinian organizations, including the PLO, and his support for sanctions and boycotts against Israel. His visits to Gaza and Lebanon and meetings with Hamas and Hezbollah activists seemingly intensified these accusations, but he referred to them as 'forces of peace, understanding, and dialogue' and those who have defended their people. In the spring of 2016, Corbyn's troubles increased following multiple statements from Labour Party members regarding Israel and Jews; Ms. Naz Shah, of Pakistani descent, wrote on her social media that Israel should be moved to America; Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London, said that 'Hitler was himself a Zionist'; and Salim Moola, former mayor of Blackburn, claimed that Israel was behind ISIS and the November 2015 Paris attacks. All three were expelled from the party, but Corbyn was criticized for not openly condemning them. Critics said he was not doing enough to eradicate anti-Semitism from the party ranks. However, just two months later, his statement that 'our Jewish friends are not involved in the actions of the Netanyahu government to the same extent that our Muslim friends are not involved in the destructive actions carried out in the name of Islam' raised suspicions that he was comparing the Netanyahu government to ISIS. Corbyn explained these remarks by stating that one should not expect a Jew to be identified with the actions of Israel, just as a Muslim is unaware of the destructive actions carried out in the name of Islam. Three months later, when Isaac Herzog, the leader of the Israeli opposition, invited Corbyn to visit Israel and learn about the Holocaust Museum 'to learn a little history,' he rejected this sarcastic invitation and was criticized again. In March 2018, it was claimed that Corbyn was an active member of a secret anti-Semitic group on Facebook called 'Palestine Lives,' but he emphasized that his membership in the solidarity campaign with Palestine was clear to everyone. In all these cases, his supporters have also said that critics who cannot remove him from the leadership of the Labour Party through the ballot box aim to achieve this by repeatedly defaming him. Despite all these criticisms, Jeremy Corbyn strengthened the Labour Party in the 2017 UK general election, increasing its seats from 232 to 266, and was only 800,000 votes behind the Conservative Party led by Theresa May, the Prime Minister.