(JTA) — Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour party, was in 2011 filmed applauding a speaker at a conference who called for the dismantlement of Israel, which he also said “kidnapped” Judaism.
The footage published Thursday was taken at a pro-Palestinian conference that Corbyn, a far-left politician, attended in 2011 alongside several anti-Israel activists who have been accused of anti-Semitism.
In it, Yisrael Dovid Weiss of the Neturei Karta haredi sect, is seen saying: “You said there should be the end of a Jewish state. I just wanted to respectfully say: The end of a Zionist state that has kidnapped the name of Judaism. It’s not a Jewish state.” He added: “We want … a peaceful dismantlement of the state and to live together in harmony, God willing it will happen.”
Corbyn is seen clapping at Weiss, who in 2006 attended in Iran a conference aimed at denying and ridiculing the Holocaust.
Since his election in 2015 to head Labour, Corbyn has fought allegations that his critical attitude toward Israel and alleged tolerance of anti-Semitism have injected Jew hatred into the heart of the party.
Amid scrutiny, Corbyn in 2016 for the first time said Israel has a right to exist.
In 2009 he called Hamas and Hezbollah his friends and said that Hamas is working to achieve peace and justice. In 2013 he defended an anti-Semtiic mural. In 2015 he laid flowers on the graves of Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. That year he also said British “Zionists” don’t understand British irony.
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