Jeremy Corbyn has apologised for hosting a 2010 event in Parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day where speakers compared Israel’s treatment of Gaza to the Nazis' treatment of Jews.
The event was covered in the JC at the time but this week, amid a growing row over antisemitism within Labour, now-party leader Mr Corbyn was confronted by the Times on Tuesday.
Mr Corbyn told told the paper: “Views were expressed at the meeting which I do not accept or condone.
“In the past, in pursuit of justice for the Palestinian people and peace in Israel/Palestine, I have on occasion appeared on platforms with people whose views I completely reject. I apologise for the concerns and anxiety that this has caused.”
As reported by the JC at the time, organisers of the meeting, which was part of a tour called “Never Again – For Anyone”, said they had invited communities “to remind us of their resistance to the mass taking of life, in this way honouring all resistance and undermining the racist Zionist view of Jewish exceptionalism.”
The event was chaired by Mr Corbyn. Speakers included Dr Hajo Meyer, an Auschwitz survivor who became a vocal anti-Zionist activist and who spoke against the “Nazi genocide of Jews to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the state of Israel.”
At the time, representatives of the Jewish community in the UK said the event was “despicable” and had “crossed a dangerous line.”
Further details unearthed by the Times revealed that a Palestinian activist, Haidar Eid, who spoke at the meeting via a satellite link-up, reportedly said: “The world was absolutely wrong to think that Nazism was defeated in 1945. Nazism has won because it has finally managed to Nazify the consciousness of its own victims.”
On Twitter, Colin Myer said he attended the event as an observer, and described how “there was another angle to proceedings, which was that the Jews have conspired to build a monopoly on suffering from genocide (at the expense of Rwandans, Armenians, etc) in order to deflect criticism of Israel.”
Hi David, I was actually at this event as an observer. There was another angle to proceedings, which was that the Jews have conspired to build a monopoly on suffering from genocide (at the expense of Rwandans, Armenians, etc) in order to deflect criticism of Israel
— Colin Myer (@colinmyer) August 1, 2018
Karen Pollock, the chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: “On Holocaust Memorial Day, when people from all backgrounds, parties & faiths came together to remember the unique evil of the Holocaust, Mr Corbyn chose to chair an event undermining its very purpose - deliberately distorting of the truth of history’s greatest crime.”
Comparing the actions of Israel to the Nazis is one of the examples of behaviour that could be antisemitic, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of Jew-hate, which Labour has rejected.
The definition the partyvoted to adopt last month did not include this as an example.
