Three weeks after he was elected Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn famously addressed a Labour Friends of Israel reception and managed to leave the room without uttering the word ‘Israel’.
That silence was perhaps more welcome than it appeared at the time as his alleged comparison between Israel and Islamic State at last week’s launch of the findings of Shami Chakrabarti’s inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour party demonstrated.
All politicians make the occasional gaffe and one who has risen on the back of his supposed unspun authenticity might be excused the odd rhetorical stumble.
But were Mr Corbyn’s comments really, as his defenders claim, a genuine misunderstanding? And while his office claims he was referring to places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, anyone who could write or deliver the words “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations” and not pause to consider whether such a comparison might be drawn, has the naivety of a grade one political novice. Whatever their faults, Mr Corbyn and his team are not so afflicted.
Indeed, his office’s explanation rather misses the point: it is not the actions of the Ayatollahs or the Al Saud family but terror groups like ISIS that racists routinely ask Muslims to account for. But they also helpfully suggested that the “organisations” to which Mr Corbyn alluded might include Hamas. We know that Mr Corbyn counts Hamas as “friends”, but those who believe them to be antisemitic terrorists are a little more wary of their company. We know, too, that Mr Corbyn does not consider comparisons between ISIS and Israel to be so offensive as to disqualify one from holding high office – if the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in his rump Shadow Cabinet qualifies as such. Just days before his appearance at Ms Chakrabarti’s side, he appointed Grahame Morris, who in 2014 equated British Jews who fought for the IDF to jihadis who join ISIS, to this esteemed position.
Mr Corbyn was not so much emitting a gentle dog whistle to his supporters as sounding a giant foghorn. Anti-Zionism is one of the defining characteristics of the hard left which constitutes Mr Corbyn’s political base. He’s addressed their rallies over the years and attended their meetings, speaking – repeatedly but seemingly unknowingly – alongside a motley crew of antisemites, homophobes and terrorist apologists. He gets what makes these people tick. He understands what makes their ideological juices flow. And he knows that, as he totters on the precipice of a leadership challenge, he – or, if he throws in the towel, whomever he anoints to carry the hard left’s banner into the ensuring contest – may soon need to mobilise them. That is why Mr Corbyn stood idly by as – at an event which was supposed to begin the process of putting to bed Labour’s antisemitism problem – one of his supporters verbally attacked a Jewish MP, accusing her of colluding with his media enemies.
Of course, the participation of Jews in conspiracies is one of the oldest tropes in the antisemitic handbook. Social media is already awash with accusations that Mr Corbyn is the victim of a “Zionist plot”. His critics – such as the Labour MP Jess Phillips, a parliamentary supporter of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East who co-signed a letter in 2014 accusing Israel of a “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” response during the Gaza war – stand accused by the far-left Twitterati of being bought off by “Zionist money”.
Within the Labour party, Mr Corbyn and his opponents are engaged in a shouting match of the deaf. Voices from across the party – from Blairites to Brownites, the “old right” to the “soft left” – bellow about the need for Labour to retain a semblance of electability if it is to avoid annihilation at an early general election. But it is not so much that the hard left won’t play by these rules; they’re simply not interested in the electoral game. Their goal is not Downing Street, but control of the Labour party machine. For most of them, who have hung out powerless on Labour’s fringes or in an assortment of far-left sects and political organisations, maintaining a grip on a party which actually has parliamentary representation is an almost unimaginable prize. They will not let go without a fight, even if it destroys that which they are engaged in combat over.
Labour’s problem is that party reform legacy of Ed Miliband continues to haunt it. For as long as it allows people to sign up for £3 to vote in its leadership elections, the hard left will continue to have an open door through which to shove its pernicious agenda. And that agenda will invariably contain a heavy dose of hatred for the world’s only Jewish state.
