Jeremy Corbyn Could Learn Some Statesmanship on Palestine

Published in Haaretz, 26 September 2018


Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s longheld antipathy towards Israel and his pro-Palestinian activism is hardly unprecedented in Western politics. Why is it, then, that his stance, and how he expresses it through word and deed, attracts so much controversy?
Are his views the problematic issue, or the dogmatism they expose? What is it about how he speaks and acts concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict that leads many to conclude he is acting in bad faith? 

One way of interrogating this issue is to compare Corbyn with the intriguing precedent of another British politician known for his overt criticism of Israel and sympathy for Palestinian statehood: a politician who also attracted condemnation and was accused of anti-Semitism, but managed to move past a rigid Manichean view of the conflict to become a potential mediator between the sides, and extolled as a statesman of integrity and honor – a role that seems far away, indeed, from Corbyn’s current position.  READ MORE