We were informed by a recent press article of the newspaper “Parapolitica” (March 19, 2016) that Ahmet Mete, a religious figure in Xanthi, during his speech delivered in August 2014, at the village of Glafki, stated inter alia: “Curse against Israel! For these are the ones turned into soap by the Germans. But Hitler was right when he said: now you will be angry with me but one day I will be proved right about the Jews. Now our curse goes upon them, and our prayers upon our brothers”.read more
In a recent interview Belgian Member of Parliament Simone Susskind, herself a Jew, spoke out against the Jewish people and the Israeli government in the wake of the Brussels attacks.read more
Susskind harshly criticized the haredi community, claiming that they set the agenda in Israel as exemplified in issues such as the division of public transportation. "Look what they do in Israel. The women must sit in the back of the bus," she claimed.
"If there were 200 million extremist Jews that were in control, it would not look much different - their ideal world view is very similar,” Susskind said, comparing the haredim to Muslim Arabs.
The Vienna-based Erste Group bank – a financial giant in Central and Eastern Europe – has become embroiled in an anti-Semitism row because its provides an account to a BDS group in Austria.read more
“The bank should tell BDS Austria to take its business elsewhere, ” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
He said the account could give Erste Group “a black eye because of anti-Semitism.”
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign targets the Jewish state with economic pressure to advance Palestinian interests.
The secretary-general of Vienna’s Jewish community, Raimund Fastenbauer, told the Post last week that Erste Group should close the account of BDS Austria. “Our president [Oskar Deutsch] said at a rally that the BDS campaign is anti-Semitic,” added Fastenbauer.
Cooper praised the leadership of the more than 7,000 Jews in Vienna for “standing up to an anti-peace movement [BDS] that has elements of anti-Semitism.”
“If BDS becomes embedded in mainstream society, the economy, academia, culture, it will have a long-term toxic effect,” said Cooper.
 |
| Photo: The Indepdent |
The UK's Labour party was again facing criticism this week over reported remarks made by a party activist who allegedly insinuated that Israel is behind the terrorist group known as Islamic State, British media reported.
According to the British Independent, Labour activist Bob Campbell accused Israel of operating ISIS in a post on Facebook a day after a pair of suicide bombings in Brussels last week.
The report published an alleged screen-shot of Campbell's Facebook post, in which he said "ISIS is run by Israel," suggesting that there was a correlation between pro-Palestinian moves in France, Japan, Indonesia and Belgium and ISIS attack.
"How many more attacks have to take place before the world fully understand that ISIS is run by Israel?" he was quoted as saying on Facebook.
Dear friends in Israel,
Miguel Vale de Almeida is a Portuguese academic who has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and was also a member of the Portuguese Parliament. He just posted publicly expressing his support for international economic sanctions against Israel.
*sarcasm on* So please, make sure to keep inviting him to visit universities you pay with your own taxes. *sarcasm off *
 |
| Two victimes of the massacre at the Jewish museum in Brussels perpetrated by Mehdi Nemmouche (2014) |
 |
| Source: Joods Actueel |
 |
| Abou Jahjah |
 |
| Cartoon by Zeon |
Warsaw - During the night between Catholic first day of Easter and observed in Poland second day of Easter, between 2am and 10 am on March 28th, 2016, unknown perpetrators destroyed the facade of the Tel-Aviv Café.
Pink, big, antisemitic slogans read: "Free Palestine", "Zionism is a racism", "The wall is your shame".
Islamic State terrorists had reportedly "advanced plans" to murder Jewish children in attacks aimed at educational and youth institutions in Turkey, according to Britain's Sky News on Monday.read more
The report cited information allegedly obtained by intelligence officials from arrested ISIS operatives regarding "an imminent" attack.
According to the Sky News report, six ISIS members arrested over the last week in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep revealed the alleged plans by the extremist group to target Jewish children at kindergartens, schools and youth centers.
Cologne’s top daily newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger published recently an interview with German journalist and humanitarian Rupert Neudeck. In it, Neudeck compares the Palestinian Government to the Quisling regime, the collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling in occupied Norway during the Second World War, implying that the Israelis today are like the Nazis. The journalist who questioned Neudeck didn't criticize this parallelism.read more
Colmar – this morning, around 9:30, a Colmar resident found two antisemitic posters at the bus stop right in front of the post office.read more
She photographed them before tearing them.
The posters were two A4 photographs with an explicit message that bus users could read and that half-covered the advertisement of a gold dealer on the same street. The text hurts the memory of Ilan Halimi, victim of the "gang of barbarians" in January 2006, and included references to National Socialism and Islam.
A student union has reported “recurring incidents” of antisemitic graffiti after a new daubing was spotted by a Jewish student.
Aaron Isaac noticed the graffiti in a building at Goldsmiths University in south-east London.
It read: “Goldsmiths it’s the symbol of world Jewry!”
(...)
In a statement, the students union said that similar anti-Semitic daubings had been reported earlier in the year.read more
It said: “Goldsmith Student Union has been made aware of recurring incidents of antisemitic graffiti. We did not make a public statement so as to not give spotlight to the perpetrators. However we cannot allow instances such as these to continue and to become a stain on the student culture of this campus.
A young rabbi from the Netherlands said unidentified individuals threw stones at him at a park in Brussels in a suspected anti-Semitic incident.read more
The rabbi told JTA about the incident Saturday on condition of anonymity, citing a desire to have his name “associated with positive issues and not anti-Semitism.”
(...)
In the rock-throwing incident, the rabbi said he was walking through the park in Brussels’ southern district of Forest with a friend when “stones were thrown at us. For one reason only: being visibly Jewish.” No one was hurt in the incident, he said. The rabbi said he did not see the people who threw the stones at him and his conversation partner.
“I sometimes see groups of young Arabs in parks,” the rabbi said. “I smile at them and usually nothing happens, but this time I was in conversation when the stones started getting thrown.”
The rabbi, who is in Brussels to visit family, said he has had anti-Semitic insults hurled at him sometimes in the Netherlands, but never stones.
Londoner David Patrikarakos was surprised to see antisemitic graffiti in the toilet at a local pub in Victoria. He tweeted photos, commenting: “I’ve lived in London all my life and you never used to see this stuff around. Sad.” The graffiti claims that “Jews run [the] UK” and “Jews start all war[s] for [money]”.
“On the one side, it is awful and shameful; on the other side, it was not surprising to me,” he said by phone Thursday, one day before conducting a special briefing for Jewish leaders at UJA-Federation of New York.
Such an attack, he said, “is what we expected in Brussels. Life there has changed in the last 15 years. At the end of September in 2000, the second intifada began and the very next day Jews in Belgium were attacked. My rabbi became a victim of insults, with young people spitting on him and throwing stones all because he a rabbi with a synagogue in a Muslim neighborhood.”
Rubinfeld noted that fully one-third of the city’s population of 1 million is Muslim and that Jews number just 20,000.
At the time of the second intifada, “From Friday night to Saturday night [the rabbi] walked three times back and forth to the synagogue, and he was an easy target,” he said. “This continued for one to two years and then things calmed down for a little bit. Then Molotov cocktails were thrown at synagogues and the attacks culminated in 2014 when a French Algerian terrorist killed four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.”
Each time Israel is forced to go to war with Hamas or Hezbollah terrorists, Rubinfeld pointed out, “you saw hundreds and thousands in the street with anti-Israel demonstrations, hold anti-Semitic banners, waving the Hezbollah flag and shouting, ‘Death to Jews’ in Arabic. This is why what is happening today is very logical. The climate we are experiencing today has been going on for 15 years.”
Asked if the authorities were aware of it, Rubinfeld said he had personally warned about it for years.
“I said if you do not tackle this anti-Semitism, it will spread and tomorrow everybody will be a target. I said, ‘If you don’t do it for my kids, what we are experiencing will happen to your kids. … There are some people who don’t see red when Jewish blood is spilled.
“They have to understand that Jews are the canary in the coalmine, and when the canary is dying it means bigger problems are coming. So it starts with killing and harassing Jews, and if not stopped, this movement becomes uncontrollable.”
Polish police said they located a Holocaust monument that had been reported missing in Plonsk, the birthplace of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.
Police found the monument in the possession of individuals who claim they own the area, the Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported last week. Police would not name them.
The monument, which had been unveiled in 1983, will be returned to its original site, the city said. It was built near a Jewish cemetery that, according to the website sztetl.org.pl, had been destroyed during World War II and built on after it.
Featuring a large stone tablet with the inscription, “In memory of Polish Jews murdered in 1939-1945. The community of Plonsk,” it rested on pillars built on three slabs of stone symbolizing the headstones that had been destroyed there.
The Board of Deputies has raised concerns with the BBC over “misleading headlines” in the its coverage of attacks in Israel.
A delegation from the Board met BBC’s Head of News James Harding this week to discuss the Jewish community’s concerns about the reporting of the recent upsurge of violence in Israel.
In a statement following the meeting, Board president Jonathan Arkush said: “We raised strong concerns about misleading headlines in reports about attacks in Israel, the lack of reports about a large number of attacks and an almost total lack of reporting about incitement and corruption in the Palestinian Authority.
“We conveyed to Mr Harding fully and clearly the feeling within the Jewish community about these matters. The BBC said they were open to dialogue and we intend to pursue the conversation with the BBC on a regular basis.”
 |
| Jewish children in Belgium, dressed as soldiers on Purim (Cnaan Liphshiz) |
Belgian Jewish leaders have praised the patrols and the government allocation of $4.5 million for the community’s protection. But amid reports of repeated failures in Belgian authorities’ counterterrorist efforts, Michaeli’s dismissive attitude is shared by other Belgian Jews. Many feel that their government is less competent in defending civilians, Jews and otherwise, than its neighbors, including France.read more
On Thursday, Menachem Hadad, a Brussels rabbi, told Israel’s Army Radio, “Belgian authorities have no understanding of security issues — zero.” He said soldiers posted outside a synagogue and the city’s Chabad House told him that for months, they used to guard the area with no bullets in their rifles. “It was just a show. It’s not normal,” he said.
Responding to Hadad’s claim, a Belgian Defense Ministry spokesperson wrote in an email to JTA that the soldiers posted in Brussels “are adequately armed and trained,” adding the ministry is nonetheless looking into the claims about the synagogue and Chabad House.
 |
| Pet project: The £8million palace built by Palestine, which has received £72million of foreign aid |
 |
| Amjad Awad (pictured) and his cousin Hakim Awad killed Ehud and Ruth Fogel and their three children in their West Bank home in 2011. They have been getting foreign aid since they were convicted for life |
Former Lord Mayor of Bradford suspended by Labour Party over anti-Semitismread more
Labour has suspended a former Lord Mayor of Bradford in the latest row over anti-Semitism to hit Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Khadim Hussain, a Labour councillor, is under investigation for sharing a Facebook post that complained that the deaths of millions of Africans are not taught in schools but “your school education system only tells you about Anne Frank and the six million Zionists that were killed by Hitler”.
The news came as the Guido Fawkes website alleged that Labour had reinstated Beinazir Lasharie, a Kensington councillor and former Big Brother contestant whose membership was suspended in October after she had posted a Facebook message saying: “Many people know about who was behind 9/11 and also who is behind Isis. I’ve nothing against Jews ... just sharing it!”
She is listed on the Kensington council website as a Labour councillor, but a Labour spokesman denied that she had been reinstated.
This is the shocking moment a woman removes an Israeli flag from a Brussels memorial and rips it up, before hiding the pieces away underneath another flag.A French-language station captured the footage at the shrine set up at Brussels' Place de la Bourse. During the clip, which is just over one minute long, a woman wearing a hijab, a brown coat and a scarf picks up a Palestinian flag from the candle-lit vigil and takes it over to an Israeli flag.
The woman then walks off out of shot, with not one of the many onlookers approaching her to question her over her shocking actions.
Another video shows a man, wearing beige trousers, a black hooded jacket and gloves, walking into the middle of the candle-lit memorial. He picks up a Palestinian flag and places it over the Israeli flag so it can no longer be seen.
Romania's Holocaust institute on Wednesday protested the appointment of a well-known journalist to the board of the country's public television station, saying the move is disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust.read more
The Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust said that Oana Stanciulescu is unsuitable for the position due to her criticism of a recent law that punishes Holocaust denial or the promotion of the fascist Legionnaires' Movement with prison sentences of up to three years.
Her place on the 13-member board, approved by Parliament Tuesday, has generated strong reactions in a reflection of the difficulty Romanians have had in coming to terms with their history in the quarter-century since communism ended.
In a reflection of that turmoil, the party that represents the interests of ethnic Hungarians walked out of Parliament ahead of Tuesday's vote, and the head of the Jewish community, Aurel Vainer, also protested.
Romania’s Holocaust Institute on Wednesday protested the appointment of a well-known journalist to the board of the country’s public television station, saying the move is disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust. According to the institute, the journalist in question – Oana Stanciulescu – has in the past written articles praising Legionaries killed in Spain fighting for Franco, as well as Nae Ionescu – one of the Legion’s leading theorists – and Romania’s wartime dictator Ion Antonescu.
On Tuesday, Dolinsky wrote that the wreath placed earlier this month by Israel Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the Babi Yar Jewish Holocaust monument had been torched hours after she left it there. The attack was the seventh case of vandalism against the monument since 2015. During the Holocaust, Nazis and local collaborators killed some 50,000 Jews there.read more
"Kill the Jews" was scrawled on a synagogue in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy.
(...)read more
The graffiti was discovered Wednesday in Cherkasy, Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, wrote on Facebook. In addition to spray-painting the message of incitement to violence against Jews on an external wall, the perpetrators wrote: “Jews annexed Ukraine.”
The vandals used the word “zhyd” for Jews, which many Ukrainian Jews consider derogatory.
Dolinsky sarcastically described the inscription as “traditional congratulations for Purim.”
A lot has been written in the British media about antisemitism in the UK Labour Party, but an op-ed written by Dave Rich of the CST masterfully cuts down the core of what the debate is about – the belief by a worrying number of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters and “friends” that “Jews must be up to something”.
The basic idea behind most modern anti-Semitism is that Jews must be up to something. Whatever Jews say and do can’t be taken at face value: they must have some ulterior motive or hidden agenda that needs to be uncovered.
So when Jewish donors give money to political parties, it can’t simply mean that they support that party’s policies, as any non-Jewish donor would; they must be trying to buy support for Israel. Or when Israel sends rescue teams to countries that have suffered from natural disasters, it can’t simply be to offer humanitarian aid; it must be to steal human organs from the victims of those disasters.
Later in the op-ed, Rich addresses those who reflexively dismiss antisemitic rhetoric as “merely” anti-Israel.
Nowhere is this more apparent than when Jews complain about anti-Semitism in left-wing or pro-Palestinian circles. It has become a reflexive response for any such complaints to be dismissed as fake, a manufactured outrage designed to cynically deflect criticism of Israel’s policies.
due to years of treating Jewish concerns about anti-Semitism as a cynical Zionist smokescreen…Anti-Semitism is simply not recognized as such if it comes in an anti-Israel context
read more
Les Brigandes, which we mentioned before in our January highlights, is an ultra-conservative band made up of seven young women of, shall we say, "unbridled creativity". The group is growing in popularity among all those involved in some way with the world of the fachosphère – the name given in France to all groups or movements perceived as fascist. Under their wolf masks, the group – whose name pays tribute to the Vendean royalist insurgents – spread a fundamentalist, conspiracy message that is fiercely hostile to any kind of difference. A message in which a white, ultra-catholic, Putin-loving France is idealised. The group is led by Marianne, their spokesperson for "alternative" media, supported by Maxime, who posts the young women's numerous musical creations on the Le Comité de Salut Public (Committee of Public Safety) website.
The problem with this latest expression of hate on the internet is the surprising popularity of their videos: 50,000-100,000 views for most of their songs. This sort of makes them stars in the making for the extreme right.
(...)
Inspired by conspiracy delusions, Les Brigandes imagine themselves to be living in a world controlled by lobby groups. The names of these groups certainly cannot be mentioned... yet through their songs, they are revealed to be the famous jewish-zionist-freemasonic coalition. Nothing original here: this are the same clichés that the movement led by Alain Soral refer to in one of their interviews. They accuse the Jewish elite of promoting Muslim immigration with the aim of destroying the European Christian civilisation, thus subscribing to the popular extreme-right theory of "great replacement", the title of their album.
Just in case you are wondering, I do not attend a solidarity meeting or gathering where the "Israeli" flag is hanging. That flag represents the same kind of evil that Daesh represents.
Belgium’s Jewish community cancelled Purim festivities “at the request of the police due to the police’s fear of additional terrorists in the area,” YNet reports. Smaller, low-key gatherings will be held instead.
“The police said that they are unable to protect the event while the city is in a state of war,” he said.Belgian security forces are still searching for suspects. The casualty count now stands at 31 dead and 270 injured. See today’s Daily Telegraph and CNN liveblogging.
Meanwhile tweet of the day goes Israeli journalist Amichai Stein.
[...] The tension between those who see Israel as a partner and those who see it as a problem is a common theme that has run through every US presidential administration since Harry Truman’s, Ross said. But if those who ascribe to the Israel-as-partner school of thought often get the upper hand in the US, in Europe many of the governments are in the grips of those feel that Israel is a problem.
For this reason, it is unrealistic to expect that Tuesday’s terrorist atrocities in Belgium will in any significant way alter how either Belgium or the European Union view Israel.
Anytime there is a major terrorist attack in a western country, there are those in Israel who think it will give the stricken country a different perception of what Israel faces, of its security concerns, and perhaps lead them to judge Israel more kindly or even alter negative policies toward the country. But it never really happens.
Madrid was hit by a major terrorist attack in 2004, London in 2005 and Paris twice in 2014. But none of those countries, nor the EU, changed their overall diplomatic stance toward Israel after those attacks.
France, for example, is now pushing forward a diplomatic initiative to restart the Israeli- Palestinian peace process – to which Israel is adamantly opposed – despite the attacks in Paris that some in Israel thought would cause the French to rethink their Mideast policies.
Experience has shown that after major terrorist attacks abroad, those who believe that the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is the source of much of the frustration, anger and despair fueling terrorism, believe it even more strongly.
While opinions of Israel may not be changing, major terrorist attacks do have a tendency to adjust the stricken country’s focus toward enhancing local security, and this has led some countries to closer security cooperation with Jerusalem. After the November attack in Paris, the French special police unit carried out a raid and killed two terrorists in a suburb of the French capital. The commander of the unit said it “learned from the experiences of our friends as far as techniques used in places like Israel.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his address Tuesday to the AIPAC conference in Washington, said that high-level delegations from around the world fly into Ben-Gurion Airport each day to tap into Israel’s security expertise in fighting terrorism.
“As many of them confront the rise of militant Islam and its accompanying terrorism, they come to Israel to strengthen their security,” he said. “They wish to learn from Israel’s proven security and intelligence capabilities how to better protect their own people.”
And while the number of those delegations may increase because of Tuesday’s attacks, don’t expect this to lead to a dramatic shift in voting patterns on matters relating to Israel at the UN. It never has in the past.
Jeremy Corbyn was interviewed on Sky News today. In response to the challenge from Lord Levy to ‘deliver a specific and categoric condemnation of antisemitism’, Corbyn proceeded to deliver a general and partial condemnation. Labour is against antisemitism he repeated, again and again. But he did not address the problem, as described clearly by all those who have thought seriously about it. He refused. He did the opposite. He denounced antisemitism in the most general terms possible, as he denounces Islamophobia and all other racisms too.read more
He shows he does not understand the point by promising to stand by Jews if they are attacked on the street. But within the Labour Party? He has nothing to say.
And then he accuses Lord Levy of bad faith. He repeats the phrase Lord Levy ‘knows full well…’ three times .. (1) that I oppose antisemitism, (2) that the Labour Party opposes antisemitism and (3) that we all oppose antisemitism. If he knows ‘full well’, then why is Lord Levy making all this trouble? Jews must be up to something. Corbyn is accusing Levy of mobilizing a bad-faith allegation in order to damage the Labour Party.
Like Orwell, I can only provide personal examples as there still hasn’t been any decent research done into this area (something he was calling for in 1945). But as a blonde snub-nosed Jew, I hear my fair share of jaw-dropping comments about ‘my kind’ because I enjoy the benefits of being incognito – aka bearing no resemblance to Goebbels’ cartoons. From those educated well-spoken types who confidently assert that Jews “think differently” to the ones who believe we “run America”, dinner party anti-Semitism is alive and well.read more
And then there was the time my good friend, who knows my faith, cracked ‘a joke’ about Jews being tight with money. This is the same pal I lent cash to when he was between pay cheques. Amazingly he failed to make the ironic connection before I gently spelt it out.
It’s true the latest fashionable form of anti-Semitism is to hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions of Israel and then compare those acts to the Holocaust. And it’s true this particular strain has been nurtured in certain Labour circles.
However, anti-Semitism is not a virus limited to the Left. The Justice Secretary Michael Gove addressed this very point in Berlin this week when he said: "Modern anti-Semitism finds a home in far too many hearts.”
Quite.
Köthen - Vandals had placed a bucket of feces on the wall of the Jewish cemetery in Köthen (Anhalt-Bitterfeld district). Spokesman for East Sachsen-Anhalt Police said on Wednesday that the United Jewish Communities notified on the event on Tuesday. At the moment, police checks which offence had been committed.read more
A picture of the bucket shows that a picture of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel was pasted on the bucket.
On Sunday, an unrelated incident was discovered in Hungary, in the city of Zalaegerszeg, 135 miles west of Budapest. Unidentified vandals stole materials from a monument that was unveiled in 2005, consisting of a marble column fitted with a copper menorah.
 |
| before |
 |
| after |
An Orthodox Jewish rail passenger was abused by a group of Chelsea fans after he was subjected to anti-Semitic chants following an FA Cup clash.read more
British Transport Police said the man was forced to move carriages after he was singled out by football supporters on a train from Milton Keynes to Euston on Sunday, January 31.
Detectives today released an image of a man they believe may have knowledge of the incident as part of a wider appeal for information.
(...)
“The carriage was crowded and they began using foul language. One of them singled out an Orthodox Jewish man and all of the men began chanting anti-Semitic abuse at him.”
EI AI flight 334 is due to land at Ben Gurion Airport at midnight with passengers from Brussels who narrowly escaped a terrorist attack at Zavantem International Airport this afternoon. EI AI security guards helped foil the assault in a shoot-out in which two of the terrorists, identified as Arabs, were captured, and one of them wounded. No EI AI passengers or personnel were hurt. There was no immediate identification of the terrorists as being members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. (Belgian Red Crass officials said two people were hospitalized and 10 others treated on the spot for slight injuries.)read more
EI AI managing director Mordechai Hod said tonight that the terrorists threw two hand grenades in the duty-free shop area of the Belgian air terminal just after the EI AI flight from Tel Aviv had landed. EI AI security guards rushed to the scene of the explosions and joined Belgian gendarmerie who were battling the attackers. The latter tried to hide but quickly surrendered.
According to an Israel Radio report from Brussels, the terrorists had opened fire on passengers waiting to board the EI AI flight and others nearby. Hod indicated, however, that the scene of the attack was some distance from the EI AI embarkation and disembarkation gates. This raised questions as to whether EI AI passengers were the target. But an official at the Pan American Airways gate said there was no doubt that the attack was aimed at EI AI. He said the terrorists simply made a mistake. They were handed over to Belgian authorities. [...]
(In New York, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations denounced the attack as “a savage and obscene act” that “confirms once again that Yasir Arafat and his band of murderers must be quarantined by civilized society. Those who find ‘moderation’ in the PLO deceive themselves and imperil the safety of innocent people everywhere.”
Israel 'rescues' 19 Jews from war-torn Yemen in covert operation
Israel has spirited 19 Jews out of war-torn Yemen in a "covert operation" to rescue some of the last remnants of one of the world's most ancient Jewish communities, officials said Monday.
Elsewhere in the Muslim world, Iran, Morocco and Tunisia still boast significant Jewish communities.
A senior Labour peer has threatened to quit the party unless Jeremy Corbyn makes “absolutely clear” that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated.
Lord Levy called on Mr Corbyn to issue an “categoric and specific” condemnation throughout the party.
(...)
Lord Levy, who was formerly Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser, told Sky News yesterday: “Anti-Semitism in any political party cannot be tolerated. And it is for the [Labour] leadership to make that absolutely clear. If they don’t make that clear, then I will start to question myself and actually question my being a Labour peer and a proud member of the Labour party.
“Let us not narrow this down to a political party. Let us talk about anti-Semitism in the wider sense and [say] that there must be zero tolerance. Any form of anti-Semitism, no matter where it rears its ugly head, must be stopped.”
Lord Levy added: “Any person who joins the Labour party, or who is a member of the Labour party, who comes up with such vile comments as have been made by these two people who have now been expelled, and the problems there have been in Oxford, [should be] dealt with with immediacy.”
