The widows of two Israeli Olympians murdered in the 1972 Munich attack have condemned Jeremy Corbyn’s “act of maliciousness, cruelty and stupidity” in laying wreaths at the graves of terrorists responsible for the attack.
Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, the widows of Andre Spitzer and Yossef Romano, two of the 11 killed by the Black September terror group, also said that Mr Corbyn “has no place in politics, or in decent, humane society when he is driven by one-sided hate and vengefulness.”
It was widely reported last year that Mr Corbyn had attended a wreath-laying ceremony in 2014 at a cemetery in Tunis where the organisers of the Munich terror attack were honoured. However, the story resurfaced on Saturday when the Daily Mail published photographs of Mr Corbyn at the ceremony.
Although Mr Corbyn’s team claimed that he had been laying the wreath at a memorial to commemorate 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike in 1985, that memorial is 15 metres away from where Mr Corbyn was photographed laying the wreath, which is in front of the graves of members of Black September.
Additionally, in a Morning Star article Mr Corbyn wrote shortly after the event, he said said that wreaths had been laid “on the graves of those who died that day” in 1986, “and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991.”
There were no Palestinians killed in Paris by Mossad in 1991. However, there were in 1992 – members of the Black September terror group who had been responsible for the Munich attack, who are buried where Mr Corbyn was photographed placing the wreath.
“We do not recall a visit of Mr Corbyn to the graves of our murdered fathers, sons and husbands,” the two widows said in a statement.
“They only went to the Olympic Games in order to participate in this festival of love, peace and brotherhood; but they all returned home in coffins.
“If you want a genuine transformation of politics, Mr Corbyn, we would suggest that you first study history and understand how terrorism undermines and vilifies society and mankind.
“Do not forget, Mr Corbyn, that you will be judged by the company you keep.”
In response to the widows' statement, Labour's press team tweeted on Sunday night they were being "misled".
"Jeremy did not honour those responsible for the Munich killings," the tweet said. “He and other Parliamentarians went to the Palestinian cemetery to remember the victims of the 1985 Israeli bombing of PLO headquarters, many of whom were civilians.”
But no other Parliamentarians were reported to have joined Mr Corbyn on the trip at the time.
The Labour press statement was widely ridiculed on social media, with commenters calling it “a bare faced lie” and “utterly disgraceful.”
Other users pointed out that earlier in 2014, while Mr Corbyn was chair of the Stop the War Coalition, the organisation's website had published an article by a writer with links to the far right and Neo-Nazis, which falsely claimed that the Black September terror group had never intended to kill the Israeli Olympians.
The article, which was later removed from the Stop the War website but is still archived on the internet, claimed that "when the Israeli government refused to consider an exchange, the German police, with the Mossad at hand, were pushed into an ill-planned rescue attempt in which some of the hostages (no one knows how many) were killed accidentally by the attackers, and a German policeman was also killed."
