Corbyn has made criticism of Israel impossible

If I were Benjamin Netanyahu (and I’m not) I would be thanking whatever gods there be for sending me, at a tricky time, the most useful ally it is possible to imagine in UK politics. To Bibi’s aid has come probably the only man in Britain capable of single–handedly silencing public criticism of the Israeli government’s disturbing new Basic Law, entitled ‘Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People’.

If I were a British crusader for the Palestinian cause (and I’m not) I would be cursing whatever gods there be for sending — at a time when it might have been possible to rally critics of this unpleasant eruption of ethno-nationalism in Israeli politics — the most effective British voice available to hamper my argument.

Step forward, Jeremy Corbyn, unwitting ally of the Israeli right, unintending albatross to the Palestinian cause: the man with whose evident anti-Semitism nobody worth listening to would dare risk being associated. Flee Corbyn’s sympathies as from the leper’s bell. Shun his antipathies lest they taint your own.

More than once over the past month, as a columnist, I’ve sat down with the intention of writing for the Times or The Spectator a hostile critique of the Basic Law. This has now — despite strong opposition within Israel and from voices among the Jewish diaspora — been (quite narrowly) passed by the Knesset. But every time I’ve done so, a warning voice has stayed my hand. ‘Now is not the time to voice criticism of Israel,’ the voice has whispered. ‘The only Israel-related issue leading the news media is the anti-Semitism of Corbyn and sinister elements on the Labour left. Touch this subject, and people might hear your argument as an oblique commentary on Corbyn’s refusal to accept the international definition of anti-Semitism. If you suggest there’s something uncomfortably close to racism in a law that conflates nationhood and the state with membership of a single human grouping, people might think you’re on Corbyn’s side.