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He defended a mural depicting hook-nosed Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor
He said two Jewish critics didn’t understand “English irony”
And now we learn that in 2011 he praised a book packed with anti-Jewish conspiracy theory thetimes.co.uk/article/d71e06…
He said two Jewish critics didn’t understand “English irony”
And now we learn that in 2011 he praised a book packed with anti-Jewish conspiracy theory thetimes.co.uk/article/d71e06…
The book says the banks and press are controlled by “a single and peculiar race”, that the Rothschilds are behind all wars - and yet Jeremy Corbyn praised that book as “brilliant”, “correct and prescient” and a “great tome”
He did all that in an introduction to the 2011 edition, where there would have been ample space both to praise the overall thesis of the book *and* to denounce its antisemitism. But he didn’t do that.
A Labour spokesman now says that “Jeremy completely rejects the antisemitic elements” of the book’s analysis - but if that’s true, why didn’t he reject them in the foreword where he so warmly praised the book?
He could have said “the author was a man of his time, expressing prejudices that we now know are wrong.” But he didn’t say anything like that.
One possible defence is that he didn’t read the book. But that’s hardly likely
That leaves one last defence: that he read the book but, as with the mural, he simply didn’t notice the naked anti-Jewish racism within it. For a self-described “lifelong anti-racist”, that’s not a winning argument.
Credit to @Dannythefink for exposing this deeply depressing episode, one to add to an already long list thetimes.co.uk/article/3c2625…
