By James Marlow
Investigative reporter David Collier discovered that Jeremy Corbyn was exchanging messages in a social media group where known Anti-Semites, Holocaust Deniers and White Supremacists were present.
Although the Labour leader admitted he was a member of the private Facebook group which centred around “Palestine,” Corbyn denied he ever saw any racist or anti-Semitic posts.
But the Labour party was reported to be investigating claims that abusive messages about Jewish people were rampant on the forum. Enfield North Labour MP Joan Ryan, who is also Chair of Labour Friends of Israel wrote to Corbyn on 9 March expressing concern he was a member of the group “where neo-Nazi material and Holocaust denial was widespread.” She continued, “Given the frequency and ferocity of anti-Jewish hatred in the group, I am sure you can understand the abhorrence of many at your membership of the group.”
Mr Collier infiltrated the forum and watched for weeks throughout the night what he described was “hard-core anti-Semites wretched in their political ideologies that gather together to pretend it is about the Palestinians and not the Jews.”
The Facebook group is called ‘Palestine Live’ and its members include Jenny Tonge, David Ward, Paul Eisen, Gilad Atzmon, Labour MP for Norwich South, Clive Lewis and other.
Corbyn was in the group in late 2014 and may have joined a year earlier. He remained until shortly after becoming leader.
MP Ryan was particular angry over Corbyn organising an event on behalf of the administrator of the ‘Palestine Live’ group, Elleanne Green saying, “despite the fact that she regularly posted explicitly anti-Semitic material.”
In addition, Joan Ryan pointed out that “The speaker at the event was Max Blumental, who has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and to ISIS, and he was preceded by James Thring, a far-right activist who believes the world is controlled by Jewish elders”.
David Collier said “I quantified the level of antisemitism within the group by analysing all those who shared posts over a two-week period during February 2018. The level was 64%. When I extracted the Jewish anti-Zionists, the level rose to 73%. Nobody should be able to spend any time at all in that group, without understanding the twisted antisemitism that drives so much of the activity.”