Hamas says its ties with UK Labor's Corbyn 'painful hit for the Zionists'

Hamas’ praise of Corbyn coincides with a media firestorm in the United Kingdom surrounding recent revelations of extremist anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expressions by Labor members.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: MAY 3, 2016 15:29
Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn makes an appearance in London (photo credit: AFP PHOTO)
Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn makes an appearance in London
(photo credit: AFP PHOTO)
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas praised the head of the British Labor Party for his refusal to condemn the organization considered by Western governments and Israel to be a terrorist outfit.
According to Breitbart Jerusalem, a Hamas spokesperson bragged that Corbyn’s readiness to maintain contacts with the Palestinian organization was “a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received.”
Hamas’ praise of Corbyn coincides with a media firestorm in the United Kingdom surrounding recent revelations of extremist anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expressions by Labor members, most infamously the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.
A Hamas spokesperson, Taher A-Nunu, told Breitbart that Corbyn’s insistence on maintaining contacts with the group is a sign that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which is aimed at punishing Israel economically over its policies as they relate to the Palestinians, is making inroads.
“We welcome the declaration of the Labor chairman and see his engagement as a very important statement that is also a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received,” A-Nunu said. “It comes as part of the international boycott campaign that the enemy (Israel) is suffering from. This campaign is succeeding on both the economic and political levels and it comes at a moment that the enemy is facing difficulties in justifying its crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The Hamas spokesperson said that Labor’s willingness to engage the Islamist group sends “an important message” to the West.
“Hamas is not and will not be considered a terrorist group and our struggle is reduced to the borders of occupied Palestine,” A-Nunu said.
He also criticized the unfolding controversy over the apparently widespread anti-Semitism in Corbyn’s party, calling it a “Zionist campaign to define Labor party leaders as anti-Semitic.”
A-Nunu said the campaign is a “desperate move that reflects the weakness and confusion of the Zionist entity.”
Israeli Labor party MK Itzik Shmuli on Tuesday called on the leader of his UK sister party to resign amid reports that the party secretly suspended an additional 50 members for anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric.
"Instead of setting up another ridiculous investigative committee, Jeremy Corbyn should look in the mirror and be ashamed of the anti-Semitic spirit and moral slump into which the Labor party entered under his leadership," said Shmuli.
The UK Labor party secretly suspended 50 of it's members on Monday night for anti-Semitic and racist comments amid a whirlwind of controversy according to The Telegraph.
"Anyone with a little more integrity would have resigned long ago," said Shmuli.
The leader of the Labor party has come under fire following the suspension on Monday of two party functionaries in under seven hours for anti-Semitic rants published on social media.