Last July, the Blood Libel Sheikh came to the UK. Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn – amongst others – had invited Sheikh Raed Salah to Parliament for a meeting about Jerusalem.
The Blood Libel Sheikh has claimed that 4,000 Jews skipped work at the World Trade Centre on 9/11 and suggested that Israel carried out the 9/11 attacks.His political party published a paean to “the Martyr, Sheikh Osama Bin Laden“, whose killers had “sold their consciences to Satan”, and he has cited so-called Franklin Prophecy: a Nazi forgery in which Benjamin Franklin supposedly warns America about Jews. He chuckled at the memory of taunting a Jewish teacher with a Swastika.
The Blood Libel Sheikh was initially banned from the UK by Home Secretary Theresa May, but somehow found his way past border control.
On appeal, he was deemed not to have been a threat to British communities, yet still responsible for preaching a blood libel, whichhas inspired persecution and murder of Jews for centuries.
Nevertheless, the Blood Libel Sheikh’s lawyer Tayyab Ali held a press conference, in which he appeared alongside Jeremy Corbyn MP. Tayyab Ali called for an inquiry into Jewish influence in the Conservative Party.
Here is the BoD’s mission statement:
The Board of Deputies of British Jews exists to promote and defend the religious and civil liberties of British Jewry.
Voicing concerns about the Blood Libel Sheikh is within the remit of the BoD. Likewise, with the Community Security Trust:
CST also represents the Jewish community on a wide range of Police, governmental and policy-making bodies dealing with security and antisemitism.
These are mainstream Jewish community groups with a responsibility to protect Jews by highlighting clear threats to the peace of British Jews.
Still, Tayyab Ali wanted an inquiry into the “government relationship”:
to one of its strongest funders, a gentleman known as Poju Zabludowicz, who I understood supported the Conservative Party quite strongly with financial donations, and also supports – I think a trustee of the Board of Deputies and the Community Security Trust – and you have this mixture – a melee – of circular relationships, where money seems to be spent on Conservative party donations, funding for the election campaigns and so on.”
Tayyab Ali then appeared to blame these Jewish groups for all exclusions of extremists:
“And the reason why this inquiry is needed in these strong terms, is because all those individuals who have been excluded, cannot challenge in a tribunal their exclusion, they have to rely on judicial review”
At this point, it’s obvious that Tayyab Ali is not having a discussion about Israel/Palestine, or the nature of Zionism. He is blaming mainstream Jewish organisations for excluding all extremists from entry into Britain.
He is blaming these same Jewish groups, for opposing the racism of the Blood Libel Sheikh.
Jeremy Corbyn then backed Ali’s call for an inquiry:
“Could I just add to that, that I think the public inquiry under the Public Inquiries Act is the best course of action to take, because normally one would have said that the appropriate Select Committee in Parliament would undertake this inquiry, but I think the issues go far wider than parliamentary procedure, they go to the heart of what’s going on in the Home Office and the way the government makes decisions, so I strongly support that and I will be writing to the Home Secretary accordingly.”
Corbyn has since tried to disassociate himself from Tayyab Ali’s words. He tweeted:
actually I called for an inquiry into the decisons made by the Home Secretary concerning Raed Salah. Necessary I think
Corbyn’s tweet is not consistent with his words at the press conference. He added to Tayyab Ali’s words, and strongly supported Ali’s call for an inquiry into Jewish influence in the Tory party.
Jeremy Corbyn knows this full well.
And so, Jeremy Corbyn is now relying on Ben White’s commentary, to absolve him of any concerns about antisemitism.
Ben not-a-racist-but White has previously stated:
“I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are. There are, in fact, a number of reasons.”
Ben White has claimed that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was justified in calling the Holocaust a “myth“. Ben White cited Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy in his “beginners’ guide” to Israel.
Ben White saw the arrest of violent antisemites plotting to blow up a synagogue in New York, as a conspiratorial “threat to our freedoms.”
Ben White was scheduled to be at the same extremist meeting to which Jeremy Corbyn invited the Blood Libel Sheikh in the first place.
Frankly, if there is any inquiry to be held, it should be into the increasing influence of antisemitism within the Labour Party – not the Jewish influence within the Conservative Party.
