As Democrats fumble about and attempt to grapple with how the party should react to perceived anti-Semitism within the party, there’s another prominent leftist leader who has repeatedly been accused of Jew hatred. Despite the fact that Jeremy Corbyn could easily become Prime Minister of Britain, there has been no network coverage of charges of anti-Semitism against him. The Labour Party leader is also someone with a connection to socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez here in America.
Though the journalists at ABC, CBS and NBC like to cover British pop culture (the royal family) and politics (Brexit), they’ve avoided covering Corbyn (who has been Labour leader since 2015), even as anti-Semitism in American politics becomes a bigger issue.
Here are some of Corbyn’s flirtations with Jew hatred. He praised, and then had to issue “regret” for an anti-Semitic mural that “depicting Jews as conspiratorial world manipulators.” Corbyn spoke alongside Holocaust deniers in 2013. He has referred to Hamas as his “friends.” The politician also appeared at a memorial ceremony for Palestinian leaders believed to be involved with the 1972 Munich killings of Israeli athletes.
These are but a few examples. Yet, the networks haven’t covered it, despite the American political connection. Liberal media darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez participated in a phone conference with Corbyn in February of 2019. CNN described it as “two of the biggest names in liberal progressive politics” coming together.
Speaking of the man connected to Jew hatred, Ocasio-Cortez enthused, “Also honored to share a great hope in the peace, prosperity, + justice that everyday people can create when we uplift one another across class, race, + identity both at home & abroad.”
MSNBC analyst Charlie Sykes on Thursday DID mention Corbyn. He worried about that the Democratic Party might be “Corbynized” by the assocation with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a prominent Democrat accused of anti-Semitism. This, he said, could impact the “party of inclusion.”
The disarray in the party, I think, was on full display. And I think that, look, the blast radius of this is going to be significant because anti-Semitism, and this was intentional anti-Semitism This is — [Ilhan Omar] apologized the first time and then doubled and tripled down. If you want to see what this does to a political party, look across the pond and see what's happened to the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn.
You do not want the Democrats to Corbynize themselves on this. The Republicans are going to seize on this. They are going to pounce on this. They will weaponize this and one of the strongest arguments the Democrats have going into 2020 is that they are the party of inclusion. They are the party of diversity, the party that is the anti-Trump in terms of his racialized rhetoric. And now the script has been seriously muddied. So there's real danger for the Democrats in this.
Bigotry against Jews is a problem on the left, both in the United States and abroad. But you wouldn’t know that from the way the networks have been ignoring Omar and Corbyn.
