, 9 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
OK. I've sat back on this for a couple of days but I'm going to consider Mr Jeremy Corbyn's talents as a historian of 'Labour and the Middle East'. A shortish thread...
This stems from a tweet by @magnitsky a couple of days ago, linking to a 2011 report on Palestian refugees in Lebanon to which Corbyn contributed a section that contained the following *absolute howler*
Where to begin? Maybe with the thoughts of a proper historian of this subject matter, Joseph Gorny. "Why was it the British labour movement which dealt Zionism one of its most bitter blows?"
Next up: the idea that "Attlee conceded to the Zionist forces, allowing the state of Israel to be established". The thoughts of R.H.S. Crossman, a member of the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of enquiry regarding the problems of European Jewry and Palestine...
Of course, the man chiefly responsible for what Corbyn chooses to characterise in rather conspiratorial terms as the appeasement of "Zionist forces" was Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. Here are a few sources to illustrate that Jeremy might have got this one a bit wrong...
And then there's the Corbyn's utterly ludicrous claim that Attlee and Bevin "instantly recognised" Israel at the moment of its establishment on 14 May 1948. Here is Bevin writing to British officials in Haifa on 15 May 1948.
Attlee and Bevin were not merely refusing to recognise Israel, they were considering using Britain's Security Council veto to block any Israeli bid for membership of the United Nations.
On Corbyn's wider claim about an uncritically pro-Zionist Labour party and government in the post-World War 2.... Well, it's just not true.
So, to conclude. If @jeremycorbyn wishes to campaign on behalf of the Palestinians, that's fine. But, I'd appreciate it if he could refrain from fundamentally misrepresenting the historical record in the process.
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