The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has taken to Twitter to directly rebuke Jeremy Corbyn over revelations that he attended the “Palestinian martyrs” cemetery in Tunisia, an event which included the honouring of a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the Munich Olympics massacre.
The spat soon escalated with Jeremy Corbyn hitting back with false accusations of Israel’s actions at the Gaza border and a stab at Israel’s new Nation State Bill.
The heated exchange came after Mr Corbyn had earlier said he had been present when a wreath was laid to “those that were killed in Paris in 1992” but he did not “think” he was involved in laying it during a controversial visit to the Palestinian Martyrs’ Cemetery. Israeli secret service Mossad was accused of killing terrorists behind the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, including Atef Bseiso, a PLO intelligence chief, who was killed in the French capital in 1992.
Labour said he attended the event only to remember victims of a 1985 Israeli air strike on Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) offices in Tunis.
Writing on Twitter, Mr Netanyahu said: “The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone – left, right and everything in between.”
In addition to Corbyn’s visit to the terrorist graves, Mr Netanyahu was referring to footage released on Friday of Jeremy Corbyn making a direct comparison between Israeli policy and the Nazi occupation of Europe during World War 2 in a speech in 2013.
The Prime Minister’s rebuke received a furious response from Corbyn who was quick to deny the claims, saying: “Israeli PM @Netanyahu’s claims about my actions and words are false.
“What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children.”
Israeli PM @Netanyahu's claims about my actions and words are false.
What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children.https://t.co/H5nXqi3pnU
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) August 13, 2018
Firstly, Corbyn’s Tweet ignores the fact the over 80% of those protesters killed are members of Hamas, a terrorist organisation, which is inciting followers to attempt to breach the Israeli border. Some of these were older teens, but the accusation “dozens of children” is misleading. As we reported at the height of the violence, Mr Corbyn has chosen to ignore the terrorist nature of the protests and has consistently insisted that the perpetrators are “unarmed”, which is simply not true.
One of those replying to Corbyn’s response was Israeli journalist, Arsen Ostrovsky,
“What deserves ‘unequivocal condemnation’ is a British leader honoring murderers who slaughtered Israelis, calling Hamas & Hezbollah ‘friends’ and befriending Holocaust deniers. Oh and unequivocally condemning Antisemitism would be nice too!”
Moments after his Tweet on Gaza, Corbyn diverted the conversation to the Israel State Bill (see our opinion piece here) with another Tweet.
“I stand with the tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel demonstrating for equal rights at the weekend in Tel Aviv”, he said.
The nation state law sponsored by @Netanyahu's government discriminates against Israel's Palestinian minority.
I stand with the tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel demonstrating for equal rights at the weekend in Tel Aviv.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) August 13, 2018
The new law declares Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, with Jerusalem as its capital. Despite the widespread criticism of the bill, the new law effectively cements reality, and more significantly reaffirms biblical truth that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people.
And this seems to be the heart of the matter – Jeremy Corbyn’s recognition of Israel as the Jewish state, illustrated by his refusal to accept a key example in the IHRA definition on anti-Semitism. Prime Minister Netanyahu was right to call for unequivocal condemnation by everyone. Sadly though, the crisis of anti-Semitism in Labour’s leadership continues to deepen.
Christians United for Israel UK