Jeremy Corbyn defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's infamous speech calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map", dismissing “sensationalist headlines” and calling it as “an opportunity…to build dialogue on the issue of Palestine,” it has been revealed.
In 2005, Mr Ahmadinejad, then the Iranian President, threatened those who supported Israel or even acknowledged its existence, saying: “Anybody who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury”.
He praised “the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine…will wipe this stigma [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world.”
As uncovered by investigative journalist Iggy Ostanin, Mr Corbyn focused on the speech in his Morning Star column a few days later, saying "all the righteous indignation never mentioned a few salient points".
Mr Corbyn, then a backbench MP, did not condemn the language, saying Kofi Annan, then the UN Secretary General, “pointed out that what had been said was wrong and condemned it.”
He called this was the "context overlooked by the sensationalist headlines".
Mr Corbyn also said the speech “clearly departs from the two state solution that the Palestinian leadership has been pursuing for the past 20 years, and, in any event, would be illegal under the UN charter.”
Mr Corbyn then said the speech “also pointed out what Israel is doing to Palestine.”
The European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks a few days later.
In 2008, while visiting Israel, the then-Prime Minister and Labour party leader, Gordon Brown, would reference the comments in a speech, saying: "To those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we say in one voice – it is totally abhorrent for the president of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world."
A Labour spokesperson said Mr Corbyn had been clear in the article that "Ahmadinejad was wrong".
He said it would be illegal under international law, it departs from the two-state policy pursued by the Palestinian leadership, and that Kofi Annan had pointed out the speech was wrong and condemned it," they said.
"Coming just two years after the disastrous Iraq War, Jeremy Corbyn warned against another rush to war in the Middle East, which many saw as being by driven by George Bush and Tony Blair, and opposed the Israeli government’s continuing occupation of Palestinian territory and human rights abuses.
"Those were the right calls and arguments to make."
