MAUREEN LIPMAN blasts Jeremy Corbyn in a damning verdict as she makes a plea to all decent people 

This week has a particular poignancy for Jews, writes Maureen Lipman

This week has a particular poignancy for Jews. Not because there’s a general election, but because it’s the week before Chanukah — a festival dedicated to remembering the Jewish uprising against our Greek oppressors in the second century BC.

Now is normally a time of preparation — frying potato latkes, searching for our dreidel spinning tops and polishing our menorahs.

But this year, all of that has been put on the backburner.

For, ever since the election was called, it has suited Jeremy Corbyn well to ensure that the campaign descended into crass, distracting discussions about anti-Semitism — not least because it has ensured little airtime has been dedicated to interrogating how the Labour leader will grow magic money trees in his allotment.

I don’t need to list the endless, damning charges of anti-Semitism levied against Corbyn and his party. Even if I wanted to, there simply isn’t enough space on this page.

What horrifies me is that, in the face of all the evidence, Corbyn’s supporters have insisted that he remains an ‘honourable man’.

If only — as Mr Corbyn once helpfully pointed out — Britain’s Jews had a sense of irony, we might smile wryly at this claim.

That his supporters could continue to claim such a thing is down to one simple fact: in the Labour Party, anti-Semitism isn’t seen as racism.

For them, it’s simply the embodiment of anti-capitalism, of anti-colonialism and of anti-Westernism.

Maureen Lipman: He’s the honourable man who has voted against his own party countless times over the years, yet refuses to tolerate dissent now he’s their leader

Maureen Lipman: He’s the honourable man who has voted against his own party countless times over the years, yet refuses to tolerate dissent now he’s their leader

Which means, therefore, that it’s the very embodiment of Jeremy Corbyn — who, you must remember, is a very honourable man.

Indeed, he is such an honourable man that he has taken a shilling to appear several times on Iran’s state-owned television station, and he courted the IRA during the worst of their bombing campaign in Britain.

He’s the honourable man who has voted against his own party countless times over the years, yet refuses to tolerate dissent now he’s their leader.

He’s the honourable man who defended a mural depicting hook- nosed bankers; who is happy to be photographed holding a wreath just a few feet from the graves of terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes.

The honourable man who doesn’t sing the British national anthem, but knows every word to The Red Flag. In Spanish.

And this same honourable man, we are repeatedly told, has fought racism all his life and has himself said that anti-Semitism is ‘vile’ — even though he has allowed it to flourish among his party’s members and representatives.

He has also denounced Israel an ‘apartheid occupier’, in spite of the fact Israel has been defending its borders for seven decades.

(Indeed, it’s a classic move in the Corbyn playbook. Israelis are always portrayed as the aggressors, while terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, whose unwritten constitution states that the Jews should be destroyed and driven into the sea, are simply ‘friends’.)

And yet, somehow, despite all of this, Britain’s Jews have refused to become victims.

Corbyn, John McDonnell and their senior adviser, Seumas Milne — all privately educated — now control the largest political party in Western Europe

Corbyn, John McDonnell and their senior adviser, Seumas Milne — all privately educated — now control the largest political party in Western Europe

Over the centuries, Jews from across the world have sought refuge in Britain. Rather than make a fuss, they put their heads down and their market stalls up. They saved and scrimped to buy schoolbooks so that their children could study, graduate and give back to the country that had given them shelter from their would-be murderers.

And they certainly did give back, by adopting the culture of this country and supporting the arts, participating in local politics, contributing their intelligence, time and creativity.

Except they did all this only to find themselves back in the position of scapegoat, wrongly blamed by the hard-Left for ten years of economic austerity brought on by a banking crisis and a technological revolution.

Jews, of course, aren’t the only group who have been ignored by Corbyn’s porous anti-racist biography.

Indeed, this honourable man, an anti-racist hero, no less, has shown negligible concern towards the plight of the Christian Yazidis fleeing Isis. Nor does he seem bothered by the murder of the Muslim Rohingyas in Burma, or the brainwashing of the Uighurs in China. They don’t get his goat — or his scapegoat — in the same way.

Jews, of course, aren’t the only group who have been ignored by Corbyn’s porous anti-racist biography, writes Maureen Lipman

Jews, of course, aren’t the only group who have been ignored by Corbyn’s porous anti-racist biography, writes Maureen Lipman

Instead, Corbyn hones in only on Palestine, boasting that he plans to become the first British prime minister to formally recognise it as a state.

And so his supporters trundle on, regurgitating sinister conspiracy theories about the Jews being rich, power-hungry capitalists.

I don’t know about my fellow Jews, but I find it so tiring running the banks, the media, the state and the entertainment industry all at once.

It’s a miracle I still have time to do my shift in the corner shop on Coronation Street.

But, hang on. Has there ever actually been a prominent Jewish world leader, save in Israel and not counting the convert Disraeli?

How come we are so powerful, sly and clever that we do so badly at winning leadership?

Surely, Mr Corbyn and his cabal’s success is proof they are more powerful than us.

After all, Corbyn, John McDonnell and their senior adviser, Seumas Milne — all privately educated — now control the largest political party in Western Europe.

So, what is it that makes you fear us? It is fear, after all. Because prejudice always has fear at its root.

On the whole, we don’t stab innocent civilians. We don’t stone LGBT people, or bring down planes, or poison doorknobs, or groom poor white girls.

Can you imagine the recriminations if we did just one such act? There wouldn’t be a shop front left in Golders Green or an undesecrated cemetery in south Manchester.

We’re not all perfect, of course. We’re not a homogenised species — though, in relation to our size, we have the lowest crime rate of any faith.

Our philosophers are greater than our philanderers, and our philanthropy is greater than both.

I won’t quote our disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners, because we know it and mumble it with quiet pride. We punch so hard above our weight we could flatten Anthony Joshua with a dreidel.

We’ve been here for 4,000 years and survived pogroms and genocides. If history shows us anything, it’s that we’ll survive this upstart Islington wuss.

But if we are to do so, today is the time for everyone — Jewish or not — to stand up.

Five years of a Corbyn government — whether it starts tomorrow or after five interminable years of a hung Parliament — would be a stain on all of us.

Britain would be thrown so far to the Left that it goes all the way round and ends up holding hands with Tommy Robinson’s boys. You wouldn’t be able to slide a jackboot between them.

So, dear reader, how will you vote? For Labour? Or for a Britain that we can all call home?

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