BICOM

Former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks said yesterday that Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite who has “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map.”

In an exclusive interview with the New Statesman magazine, Lord Sacks said the Labour leader’s 2013 comments about Zionists not understanding English irony and not wanting to study history were the most offensive comments by a British politician since Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968.

Sacks said Corbyn’s words were “divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.” Sacks added: “We can only judge Jeremy Corbyn by his words and his actions…when he implies that, however long they have lived here, Jews are not fully British, he is using the language of classic pre-war European antisemitism. When challenged with such facts, the evidence for which is before our eyes, first he denies, then he equivocates, then he obfuscates. This is low, dishonest and dangerous. He has legitimised the public expression of hate, and where he leads, others will follow. 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.”

The Labour party issued a statement yesterday that said the comparison with Enoch Powell by Lord Sacks was ‘absurd and offensive.’  A Labour spokesperson added: “Jeremy Corbyn described a particular group of pro-Israel activists as Zionists, in the accurate political sense – not as a synonym or code for Jewish people. Jeremy Corbyn is determined to tackle anti-Semitism both within the Labour Party and in wider society, and the Labour Party is committed to rebuilding trust with the Jewish community.”