Haneen Zoabi comes to Corbyn's defense over antisemitism charges

"Corbyn's criticism is justified. And the state, which deals with theft, murder and racist acts under the law of nationality, is rightly justified by this criticism."

By JONATHAN WEBER ROSEN
Haneen Zoabi Joint List MK during a Knesset discussion (photo credit: HADAS PARUSH)
Haneen Zoabi Joint List MK during a Knesset discussion
(photo credit: HADAS PARUSH)
MK Haneen Zoabi (Joint List) condemned the Israeli media’s recent upsurge in reportage about the United Kingdom’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, which portrays him as an antisemite, as “unjust, offensive and absurd.”
The lawmaker specifically singled out in her statement a piece published in The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication, Ma’ariv, Wednesday morning.
The Joint List MK referenced Corbyn’s statement regarding a controversial Gaza flotilla raid, a military operation in which the IDF seized six civilian ships in international waters in May of 2010. Corbyn argued that Israel wrote speeches for UK parliamentarians about the incident.
Zoabi was aboard the ship Mavi Marmara, along with a group of activists which included a smaller group of IHH activists (a humanitarian relief foundation, which the quasi-government Turkel Commission Report identified as being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood) boarded a number ships to try to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas in Gaza.
While Israel commandeered and stopped most of the ships without incident, Israel Navy commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara and were attacked by IHH activists, leading to the injury of some commandos and the eventual deaths of 10 IHH activists.
Corbyn on wreath laying for Munich terrorists, August 13, 2018 (Reuters)
“The Gaza flotilla raid, just like the Al-Awda and Huria boats that were seized a few weeks ago by the navy in international waters, are far from the territorial waters of Israel,” Zoabi said. “They are civilian ships, foreign-owned, who sailed under a foreign flag and brought humanitarian supplies to Gaza.”
“When Corbyn criticizes the policy of the navy alongside the policy of public relations, they [the media] do everything possible to present it as antisemitic or as a visionary who imagines a conspiracy,” Zoabi continued.
Zoabi has called Israel a “fascist country” which is “only looking for an excuse to kill the Palestinians” and only months ago, Zoabi was suspended from the Knesset for a week for calling IDF soldiers murderers.
“Corbyn’s criticism is justified. And the state, which deals with theft, murder and racist acts under the law of nationality, is rightly justified by this criticism, and courageous politicians such as Corbyn will continue, even when they try to silence them,” Zoabi said.
In a video from the 2010 meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London, Corbyn claimed that Israeli officials control speeches by British MPs.
“[British MPs] all turned up [to the debating chamber] with a pre-prepared script,” Corbyn said. “I’m sure our friend Ron Prosor [the Israeli ambassador] wrote it. Because they all came up with the same key words. It was rather like reading a European document looking for buzz-words. And the buzz-words were, ‘Israel’s need for security,’ and then, ‘the extremism of the people on one ship,’ and ‘the existence of Turkish militants on the vessel.’”
“It came through in every single speech, this stuff came through,” Corbyn claimed.
Besides leading the opposition party in the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn is known for his Jewish conspiracy theories and comparing the State of Israel to Nazi Germany.
Lahav Harkov and Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.


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