U.K.’s Corbyn Fourth on Wiesenthal Center’s Top 10 Anti-Semites of 2018

LONDON – The Simon Wiesenthal Center is publishing its 2018 list of the top ten worst cases of anti-Semitism over the last calendar year, and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the U.K. opposition Labour Party, features at number four. The Wiesenthal Center, a global human rights organization which researches the Holocaust and hatred in both historic and contemporary contexts, placed Corbyn in one of the top spots on the basis that he is a threat to the existence of Jewish life in the U.K.

 

In a poll taken earlier this year, nearly 40 percent of British Jews would “seriously consider emigrating” if Corbyn were to become Prime Minister. He is widely considered by Jews, and increasingly by non-Jews, to be an anti-Semite, with some significant public statements to that effect, including by one of his own MPs, Dame Margaret Hodge, in the House of Commons.

Corbyn comes behind Robert Bowers, the neo-Nazi gunman who murdered 11 Jews in the Pittsburgh congregation shooting was placed in first place. Louis Farrakhan, the radical and highly controversial African-American activist came second and then U.S. campuses, due to the ongoing atmosphere of anti-Semitism which is sadly prevalent in many universities at the moment.

Further down the list were organizations such as UNRWA which the Wiesenthal Center described as “Enablers of Hamas,” and Airbnb, which recently bought into the BDS movement, despite assertions to the contrary, by removing properties in Yehudah and Shomron from its list. The Swedish Karolinska Institute was placed at number nine for its apathetic response following complaints of anti-Semitism and discrimination by the head of the neurosurgery department there.

The Wiesenthal Center has previously challenged Corbyn over his views on Jews. In October, Shimon Samuels, the Center’s director for international relations, wrote an open letter to Corbyn, published in the Jerusalem Post, in which he called him “a global danger” and called for his resignation.