Jeremy Corbyn reveals dossier 'proving NHS up for sale'

[Denzil_DC]

22. Thanks, Ghost Dog.

It gets tiresome having to debunk the same claims when the person making them apparently doesn't bother reading the replies.

The last time Sophie posted that particular claim, I posted this:

Mr Corbyn nonetheless stood behind the comments, insisting that he was referring to a specific group of “pro-Israel activists” and had not used the term Zionist as a “euphemism” for the Jewish community.

He said he had spoken at the conference to “defend the Palestinian ambassador in the face of what I thought were deliberate misrepresentations” from people “for whom English was a first language, when it isn’t for the ambassador.

“I described those pro-Israel activists as Zionists, in the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people – and that is made clear in the rest of my speech that day,” he said. “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 antisemites as code for Jews.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-zionists-speech-english-irony-reports-parliamentary-standards-antisemitism-a8507196.html

More context from Larry Derfner, who initially joined in the condemnation of Corbyn's remarks:

Knowing to whom and to what Corbyn was referring in his “English irony” remark makes it impossible, in my view, to consider it anti-Semitic in any way.

He was referring to an exchange that had taken place recently at a conference on Gaza that he hosted in Parliament. One of the speakers there, Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.K., reportedly said, “You know I’m reaching the conclusion that the Jews are the children of God, the only children of God and the Promised Land is being paid by God! I have started to believe this because nobody is stopping Israel building its messianic dream of Eretz Israel to the point I believe that maybe God is on their side.”

Clearly, he was not being serious; he was being ironic.

Just as clearly, Hassassian is not a native Englishman. He was born and raised in Jerusalem, didn’t live in London until he was over 50. He speaks with an Arabic accent.

This is the crucial thing to know in order to understand what Corbyn says later at the Palestinian Return Centre about the Zionists in question and English irony.

As seen in the video, Corbyn recalls that after Hassassian’s speech in Parliament, some Zionists in the audience “berated” Hassassian for what he said. He then makes his infamous comment, but he does so in direct comparison with Hassassian, noting that those who berated the ambassador “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.” By comparison, Corbyn went on, “Manuel does understand English irony, and uses it very effectively.”

This context reveals that Corbyn was not calling out Jews; he was not even calling out Zionists in general. He was calling out those particular Zionists who’d berated Hassassian.

He was not ridiculing them for being alien, for failing or refusing to acculturate themselves to such things as English irony, which would have indeed been a classic anti-Semitic remark. Instead, he was simply ridiculing them for being, as an Englishman might put it, relatively thick.

https://forward.com/opinion/409563/the-missing-information-that-exonerates-jeremy-corbyn/

It was indeed a very specific comment in a specific context. I also note that Miriam Margolyes had no compunction about using the term "Zionist" in the same sense in her Channel TV interview on antisemitism the other day.

At this stage in the election, I'd very much rather be talking about the subject of the OP.