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What Did Corbyn Really Say About Israel and Islamic State Group?

  • British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn

    British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn | Photo: Reuters

Published 30 June 2016
Opinion

The British mainstream media has been slamming the Labour leader over what they falsely claim was a comparison between Israel and the Islamic State group.

As headlines in the British media line up Thursday to accuse British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn of "anti-Semitism" by comparing Israel to the Islamic State group, the socialist leader's actual comments paint a very different picture and push a different narrative that in fact rejects stereotyping and hate speech.

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The media frenzy came about following comments made by Corbyn at the launch of a report on alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. "Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations," he said.

Despite the Labour leader clearly using the words “Islamic states” in the plural, likely to refer to autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia that repress their own people, Corbyn used the occasion to remind his audience that the world's 1.6 billion Muslims should not be held responsible for the actions of state governments.

Using the global rise in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism as the foundation of his argument, Corbyn then refuses to equate the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, considered by many to be one of the most right-wing in Israeli history, to the world's Jewish populations.

In response to this, The Guardian ran with the headline: “Corbyn appears to compare Israeli government to Islamic State.” The Times also ran with a headline saying Corbyn "appears" to compare Israel to the Islamic State group, claims that have become prominent across the entire spectrum of the British press.

In response to the coverage, Glenn Greenwald, the co-founder of The Intercept, poured scorn on the media coverage of Corbyn.

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“He ‘appears’ to do this only to people totally ignorant of basic logic or willing to seize any lie to smear him…,” the renowned journalist, who previously worked for The Guardian, said in a tweet that included the newspaper’s report and headline.

Following the media outpour, Corbyn denied he had intended to make such a comparison and further stressed his original argument.

“The point is that you shouldn’t say to someone that just because they’re Jewish you must have an opinion on Israel, any more that you say to anyone who’s a Muslim you must have an opinion on the vile actions being taken by people misquoting the good name of Islam in what they do,” he said.

Corbyn is not the first and will not be the last to criticize Netanyahu's government. Even the United States, Israel's biggest ally, slammed Israel over extrajudicial killings, torture and racism against Palestinians in the state department’s 2015 report on global human rights.

Last month, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said the current Israeli government “needs to be brought down” before it destroys Israel, warning that Israel has been "infected by the seeds of fascism."

Last week it was revealed that one of the two Labour lawmakers who originally called for a vote of no confidence against Corbyn is a registered supporter of Labour's Friends of Israel, an Israel lobby organization within the party.

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