More evidence arises of UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's support for cutting trade ties with Israel, despite recent statements to the contrary.
By TAMAR URIEL-BEERIUpdated: AUGUST 20, 2018 04:57Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn acknowledges his audience prior to giving his keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton, Britain, September 27, 2017.(photo credit: REUTERS)
More indications of British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s support for boycotting Israel can be found in The Jerusalem Post archive, despite his more recent statements to the contrary.Corbyn participated in a London rally in 2005, which hosted members of the British Palestine Solidarity Campaign who advocated for a general boycott of Israel and was a platform for other speeches “calling for Israel’s destruction.”Corbyn, a Labour MP at the time, said: “We urge our government to cease all trade with Israel.”However, a spokesperson for Corbyn told The Guardian last December that “Jeremy is not in favor of a comprehensive or blanket boycott.”“He doesn’t support BDS,” the spokesperson said.Nevertheless, an interview with Corbyn in 2015 showed him stating that “the boycott campaign... is part and parcel of a legal process that has to be adopted.”Corbyn on wreath laying for Munich terrorists, August 13, 2018 (Reuters)In addition, Corbyn told UK’s Channel 4 News last week that he “met many people from the Israeli parliament,” in response to criticism surrounding photographic evidence of Corbyn laying a wreath at the graves of the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.The only evidence that has risen so far of Corbyn’s direct involvement with the Israeli legislature, however, was in 1998, when Corbyn was vice-chairman of the Human Rights Group of the British Parliament and met with Labor MK Yossi Katz, then-chairman of the Knesset State Control Committee.Corbyn was deeply involved in efforts at the time to release Mordechai Vanunu, who was sent to prison in 1987 for selling Israeli nuclear secrets to the Sunday Times of London.Katz arranged for the removal of Vanunu from solitary confinement.
Corbyn, along with his co-supporters, requested to meet with Vanunu and to deliver a petition to Ezer Weizman, president at the time, to pardon him.In 2004, Vanunu was released from Shikma Prison in Ashkelon and greeted by supporters. Among the crowd was Jeremy Corbyn.At the 2005 rally in London, Corbyn expressed his support for the nuclear spy.Yaakov Lappin, Lahav Harkov and JTA contributed to this report.
