Jeremy Corbyn is facing claims that he visited Israel and the West Bank in November 2010 with an Islamist lobby group to meet senior Hamas officials - but failed to declare the funding for the trip in an apparent violation of parliamentary rules.
The Labour leader, then a backbencher, made the trip from 5-9 November 2010 as part of a delegation with Islamist lobby group Middle East Monitor (MEMO) who met with two groups of Hamas parliamentarians.
But an investigation by Israel’s i24NEWS channel has claimed there is no record of his visit to Israel in the British Parliament’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests, even though fellow Labour MP Andrew Slaughter declared the total cost of flights and accommodation for the same trip as £927, which he said was paid for by Friends of Al-Aqsa and Middle East Monitor.
Mr Corbyn’s most senior aide, Seumas Milne, was also present on the same trip.
Rules at the time required MPs to declare any gifts above £660 ($840).
The record of Mr Corbyn’s visit to Jerusalem has been deleted by MEMO, but i24NEWS obtained its original report.
Mr Corbyn is reported to have visited the wife of a man convicted of spying for Hezbollah, whom the report called a “political prisoner”.
The delegation also met Arab-Israeli lawmakers Jamal Zahalka and Taleb el-Sana, visited Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem, and attended a Bedouin protest as well as meeting Palestinian Authority officials and visited Jaffa.
But according to the MEMO report, Mr Corbyn did not meet a single Jewish Israeli on the trip.
On his return to the UK Mr Corbyn reported on his experiences in The Morning Star writing, “It is time to bring those Israelis who committed crimes against humanity to account and to end the EU Israel Trade Agreement while the occupation and settlement policy continues.”
Labour Friends of Israel chair Joan Ryan condemned the visit saying: “It is appalling that Jeremy Corbyn chose to meet with representatives of an antisemitic terror group which seeks the destruction of Israel.
“Hamas is responsible for some of the most heinous terrorist crimes over recent years, including the murder of teenage girls outside a disco, and families in pizza restaurants and cafes. He should apologise immediately to the bereaved families of those butchered by these terrorists.”
One Labour insider is quoted as saying: “I imagine he’s met more people who have killed Israelis than actual Israelis.”
Israel is referred to in the report as “the Zionist state” and accused of “apartheid”, charging it with performing “ethnic cleansing” in Jerusalem and planning “a forced mass Palestinian expulsion from the area”. It also calls for international pressure on Israel, which it says could include Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS).
The Sunday Telegraph had earlier revealed that Mr Corbyn had made at least nine visits aboard since 2007 which he had not declared in the register of members’ interests. But Labour said they were “confident” that all declarations that made the threshold were made.
Mr Corbyn is facing close scrutiny of his foreign visits after it emerged he made an undeclared visit to Tunisia in 2014, when he laid a wreath on the grave of the masterminds of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.
He insists that his trip, including flights and two nights at a five-star hotel, fell below the financial threshold for disclosing gifts.
Responding to the latest claims over the 2010 visit to Israel to meet with Hamas a Labour spokesperson said:"Jeremy has a long and principled record of solidarity with Palestinian people and engaging with actors in the conflict to support peace and justice in the Middle East. That is the right thing to do."
