LONDON — Even before he was kicked out of Britain’s Labour Party for saying that Israel runs the Islamic State, Bob Campbell was a marginal figure within the party.
A former forest ranger and first-aid trainer from northern England, Campbell, 49, began his Labour career last year volunteering to help the campaign of Jeremy Corbyn — a veteran socialist who, since being elected Labour chair in September, has both impressed and alienated many Britons with his views on the redistribution of wealth inside Britain and beyond.
One of thousands of voters who became Labour members since September in what British media have termed the Corbyn effect, Campbell was elected on March 25 to his first position within Labour, as a regional party outreach officer.
But his short-lived career with Labour ended abruptly last month. Amid intense media scrutiny over anti-Semitic rhetoric by party members, the Labour leadership banned him for a Facebook post claiming that Israel got ISIS to kill 32 people in Brussels to punish Belgium for supporting Palestinians.
Corbyn’s detractors say his past support for enemies of Israel is now emboldening Labour activists like Campbell and eroding the Jewish communitys trust in what historically has been a political home for many of its members.
Defenders of Corbyn, however, argue that the ejection of Campbell illustrates Corbyns determination to fight vitriol and anti- Semitism.
The debate came to a head last month after Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said that under Corbyn, most people in the Jewish community cant trust Labour.
In an interview with the Evening Standard, Arkush cited a string of incidents of anti-Semitic speech by Labour activists. (British media has reported at least five cases since March).
“Such criticism by a mainstream and nonpartisan organ of the Jewish community against a specific party and its leader is something we haven’t seen in many decades,” said Keith Kahn-Harris, a sociologist and fellow of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and a lecturer at Leo Baeck College in London.
One case that triggered Arkush’s rebuke involved Vicki Kirby, a party activist who suggested on social media that Adolf Hitler might be a Zionist G-d and that Jews have big noses. She was suspended.
Aysegul Gurbuz, a London-area politician, was suspended and later resigned after her Twitter account was found to feature praise for Hitler and for Iran’s plans to wipe Israel off the map.
Corbyn has caught flak in the past for his ties to groups and individuals with similar views. During his campaign for Labour chair, he was challenged repeatedly for his 2009 invitation to Hamas and Hezbollah activists to attend an event at Britain’s Parliament.
”It will be my pleasure, my honor, to host the event,” Corbyn said at the time, “where our friends from Hezbollah, obviously, will be speaking and I’ve also invited friends from Hamas.”
Corbyn’s Jewish supporters — a minority in Britain but nonetheless a sizable group, according to Kahn-Harris — defended him, citing his consistent opposition to racism.
Jon Lansman, an ex-kibbutznik who is one of Corbyn’s right-hand people, blamed leaders of right-wing Zionism for the attacks on his boss.
“The right-wing Zionists have other reasons for castigating Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, and there is no shortage of commentators or politicians who have little interest in combating anti-Semitism in Britain to lap this up,” he wrote in February in a Jewish Chronicle column about alleged anti-Semitism at the Oxford University Labour Club.
Yet, with incidents piling up, Corbyn has come under mounting pressure from senior members of his party, who accuse him of doing too little to stop such behavior.
Former Labour minster Tom Harris said the party has a problem with Jews, while another former minister, Angela Smith, urged Corbyn to do more. So did Sadiq Khan, a London mayoral hopeful and a Muslim.
Eric Moonman, a Jewish former politician for Labour, told JTA that ”under Corbyn, Labour is no longer my home.”
A Jewish Labour member of Parliament, Louise Elleman, told Sky News on April 6 that “while Corbyn has spoken out clearly against anti-Semitism, there’s got to be some action, and we haven’t seen enough.”
Heeding this pressure, Corbyn told the BBC last week that anti-Semitism is “absolutely abhorrent and wrong and that anyone making such statements is auto-excluded from the party. We have suspended, we will suspend, any member that behaves in that way.”
But leaders of British Jewry need additional reassurances, Arkush told JTA, in light of what he called “Corbyn’s belittling of the problem.”
Arkush was referring to Corbyn’s response earlier this month about a tweet by his brother, Piers, dismissing Elleman’s claim that the Labour leader had not done enough to tackle anti-Semitism.
Piers Corbyn wrote on Twitter: ”Absurd. Zionists cant cope with anyone supporting rights for Palestine.” Asked for a comment by the Sun, Corbyn said: “My brother isn’t wrong.”
He also said of Labour’s anti-Semitism issues: ”I wouldn’t call it a crisis, we as a party are taking resolute action.”
Last week, Michael Foster, a British Jew whose family gave Labour more than $570,000 last year, cited that quote in an op-ed explaining that he had stopped donating to Labour’s leadership.
The Board of Deputies wants Corbyn to distance himself from his brother’s statement, repudiate his expressions of friendship toward anti-Semitic entities or people, and continue to take action against anti-Semites, Arkush told JTA.
“Otherwise,” Arkush said, ”the Jewish community has no choice but to speak loudly and clearly, and [if] this means a problem in the relations with the leader of the party, then so be it.”
Kahn-Harris says he is confident that as Corbyn matures as leader of the opposition, he will learn to apply better judgment on how he deals with the Jewish community and the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists giving the party a bad name.
