Corbyn defends 2013 remarks criticizing 'Zionists'

Leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has defended his remarks in 2013 in which he criticized Zionists living in Britain for not understanding "the English irony" as much as a non-British ambassador of Palestine did.

“I am now more careful with how I might use the term ‘Zionist’ because a once self-identifying political term has been increasingly hijacked by anti-Semites as code for Jews,” said Corbyn, adding that he had used the term Zionist “in the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people.”

During his speech to the Palestinian Return Center in 2013, Corbyn criticized the “Zionists” for not being educated enough about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the contrary, he praised the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Manuel Hassassian, for his accurate information about the issue and also the way he used the English irony “effectively” in his speech, an ability he said was non-existent in many Zionists who had lived in Britain for generations. 

“They (Zionists) clearly have two problems. One is that they don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, don’t understand English irony either. Manuel does understand English irony, and uses it very effectively. So I think they needed two lessons, which we can perhaps help them with,” said Corbyn in the speech, the footage of which was published Thursday on the website of the Daily Mail newspaper.

SS