Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly admonished UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn after pictures emerged confirming he attended a 2014 wreath-laying ceremony for Palestinian terrorists.
Mr. Netanyahu said Mr. Corbyn deserved the “unequivocal condemnation” for joining the event, which took place at the Tunisia grave of the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich massacre, in which 11 Israeli Olympians were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
“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,” the Israeli leader said in Twitter post.
Mr. Netanyahu’s rare public criticism of a foreign politician came after the Daily Mail newspaper published photos of Mr. Corbyn holding a wreath to honour the instigators of the Munich atrocity.
He had previously denied being part of the service.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, Mr. Corbyn stirred condemnation and disbelief from members of his own party when the graveside trip was first revealed in May, 2017.
A column written by the left-wing Labour leader in October 2014 for the Communist Party newspaper Morning Star was cited as evidence he attended the ceremony in Tunisia “where wreaths were laid… on the graves of [those] killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991”. Mr Corbyn described the event as “poignant”. He wrote:
After wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died on that day and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991, we moved to the poignant statue in the main avenue of the coastal town of Ben Arous, which was festooned with Palestinian and Tunisian flags.
There is no evidence or record of Mossad having conducted an assassination in Paris in 1991.
Meanwhile, Faiza Shaheen, Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green, entered the debate on the side of Mr. Corbyn by claiming it is not a fact that killing athletes is an anti-Semitism issue.
Speaking on a Sky television programme, she made the extraordinary assertion in this exchange:
Mark Wallace: Terrorists who hunt down and murder Jewish people for being Jewish people is an anti-Semitism issue. That’s not hearsay, that’s a fact.
Faiza Shaheen: No, it’s not a fact. That’s the point. You hear all kinds about Corbyn, don’t we, about him being a Czech spy and the rest of it. I mean, let’s concentrate on what we know to be true.
Mark Wallace: I’m sorry. The widow of a champion Israeli weightlifter castrated and shot dead by the Munich terrorists said, ‘To go to the grave of a person behind the killing of 11 athletes, he should be ashamed and apologise.’
Faiza Shaheen: Well there isn’t actually evidence to say that he went.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell joined Shaheen in defending Mr. Corbyn, attacking Mr. Netanyahu for getting involved in the row.
But the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl, said Mr Corbyn should apologise for his attendance at the ceremony in Tunisia.
“After days of being evasive, Jeremy Corbyn has now admitted attending a memorial event for the terrorist murders of unarmed athletes. How can you say he is not involved?” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
“In 1972, these are unarmed people who were attending the Olympics, they were savagely mutilated and murdered. There is no reason Jeremy Corbyn should not apologise to the widows and to the victims for this terrible massacre.”
She added that Mr. Corbyn Marie needs to also recognise that “he can’t cavort with terrorists. Nothing is moving forward with Jeremy Corbyn. He is completely evasive. This Twitter war with Benjamin Netanyahu clearly shows his lack of credibility.”
Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com
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