Campaign Against Antisemitism Chief says Labour Are "Existential Threat"

The head of the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has launched a scathing attack on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, calling his Labour Party an “existential threat” to Jews in the UK.

Gideon Falter, Chairman of CAA spoke in a wide-ranging interview with the Jerusalem Post about the Labour leader and his history of antisemitism. He said, “We started investigating Corbyn’s history and soon realized we were looking at a man who has been on the wrong side of the antisemitism debate his entire life.”

Falter went on to describe how Corbyn’s antisemitism manifests itself, namely under the guise of criticism of Israel and Zionism. Falter said, “Many of the journalists we dealt with at the time, however, did not really understand modern antisemitism presented as hatred of Zionists, but we have changed that, so that these days, even disguised antisemitism in social-media posts is recognized as such.”

In recent weeks the Labour Party has been investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) due to complaints by the CAA, the first British political party to be investigated for racism since the overtly racist British National Party (BNP).

“For the EHRC to launch a statutory investigation into a mainstream political party is unprecedented,” Falter said. “We have been exposing Labour’s growing antisemitism in the media for years, but media campaigning is not enough because Labour carries on regardless. That is why we called in the EHRC.”

Falter then moved on to describe Corbyn and the Labour Party, saying “as he (Corbyn) and his allies have corrupted the once fiercely anti-racist Labour Party until now [that it has become] institutionally antisemitic and viewed right across the Jewish community as an existential threat.”

In the past, Jeremy Corbyn has faced considerable criticism for a number of instances of antisemitism including laying a wreath at the memorial of Black September members who slaughtered Jews at the Munich Olympic Games. Corbyn has also called Hamas and Hezbollah ‘friends’, as well as writing an article in 2009 for a hard left newspaper in which he spoke of “unbelievably high” levels of influence that Israel had over the British media. The idea that Jews or Israel control the media is a historic antisemitic trope.

Falter said of Corbyn’s associations with terrorist groups: “Take for example his open association with the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that some see just as enemies of Israel. But that is wrong – they are not only seeking a second Holocaust through the annihilation of Israel, they want the death of Jews all around the world, which makes them genocidally antisemitic.

“Anyone who supports them cannot do so without being antisemitic themselves.”