London: The Labour Party has a long history of troubling behavior, according to Jewish leaders in Britain.
In 2016, former London mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from the party after he said Adolf Hitler had been a supporter of Zionism in the 1930s. An internal review, conducted soon after, found that there was “much clear evidence” of “ignorant attitudes” toward the country’s Jewish population.
Current Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn is a fierce critic of Israel. Since his nomination as the party leader, he has been forced to defend himself against accusations that some of his supporters are anti-Semitic.
Earlier this month, Corbyn acknowledged that he had been a member of a Facebook group that has posted anti-Semitic views, though he said he had never seen the messages.
Then, on Friday, Labour lawmaker Luciana Berger, who is Jewish, challenged Corbyn’s office to explain something he had posted on Facebook five years ago. In the post, he was responding to Los Angeles-based artist Kalen Ockerman, who had complained that one of her London street murals was being painted over in response to criticism that it was anti-Semitic.
Read the article by Amanda Erickson in the Sydney Morning Herald.