Jeremy Corbyn likes the passive voice.
The British Labour leader is facing renewed criticism over his visit to a cemetery in Tunisia in 2014. Newly published photographs show Corbyn holding a wreath in front of a plaque commemorating three members of Black September, the Palestinian terror group that murdered 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
“A wreath was indeed laid” for “some of those who were killed in Paris in 1992,” Corbyn explained Monday. “I was present when it was laid, I don’t think I was actually involved in it.”
Holding and being photographed with a wreath evidently doesn’t constitute being “involved in” laying it.
It’s not the first time Corbyn has come under scrutiny over his cemetery visit. Back in 2014, Corbyn touted his trip in a column, writing: “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.” The Sunday Times described the latter as “an apparent reference” to Atef Bseiso, the former head of intelligence for the PLO who was allegedly involved in the 1972 Munich massacre. Assassins shot Bseiso in 1992 in Paris. He is buried in the same Tunisian cemetery.
Corbyn once described the members of Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated terror groups, as “friends.” Back in April, news reports revealed that he belonged to private Facebook groups that routinely circulated anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. Corbyn has also drawn parallels between the Nazi occupation of European countries during World War II and Israeli presence in the West Bank — and, on another occasion, Israel and the Islamic State.
Corbyn has explained his presence at the wreath-laying ceremony by claiming that he was commemorating the 47 Palestinians who died after an Israeli airstrike there in 1985. His spokesmen have denied that the wreath-laying ceremony had “anything to do” with Bseiso. He’s offered regrets for decision to call Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends.” And he’s claimed his comments on Israel and Islamic states was a mere slip of the tongue. It’s all a big misunderstanding, he would have us believe.
Nonsense.
The recent photographs of Corbyn in Tunisia only confirm what we already knew about the Labour leader: He’s an anti-Semite and a liar. How did such a man rise to such heights in a modern liberal democracy?
Mistakes were made.
