Labour’s anti-Semitism problem is nothing new

We may be witnessing a #MeToo moment in Labour anti-Semitism. Britain’s Jews, so damn accommodating and willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, have finally snapped and said ‘enough is enough’. At 5.30pm tonight they will gather in Westminster to protest in the most British way imaginable by handing the Labour Party a strongly-worded letter. The letter calls Jeremy Corbyn a ‘figurehead for an anti-Semitic political culture’ and says he has repeatedly ‘sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews’. If anything, it goes a little easy on him. 

The spark was Corbyn’s defence of, and dissembling over, an anti-Semitic mural in east London but the frustrations have been building up over time. Since he became Labour leader, Jews have tried dialogue, outreach, and cooperation but they have been ignored or accused of smears and Zionist plots. They have recited like charms the names Raed Salah and Paul Eisen, Hamas and Hezbollah in the hope of finally pricking someone’s conscience.