Jeremy Corbyn defended eight primary schools’ plans to send children to “unbiased” festival featuring vandal who daubed “Free Gaza and Palestine” on Warsaw ghetto
It has emerged that in 2011, Jeremy Corbyn defended eight schools’ plans to send children to a festival featuring a vandal who daubed “Free Gaza and Palestine” on the Warsaw ghetto.
Eight primary schools had intended to send children to the Tottenham Palestine Literary Festival, where speakers included Ewa Jasciewicz, who spray-painted “Free Gaza and Palestine” on the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto. According to a report in The Times, in 2002 Ms Jasciewicz called for “activists” to “do” the Israeli parliament or “a sophisticated politician bump-off” rather than targeting Israeli civilians.
The move was opposed by a Jewish charity, the Board of Deputies, but investigative journalist, Iggy Ostanin, has discovered that Mr Corbyn told the Islington Tribune that: “The Board of Deputies are hardly objective in this matter. Their record of denunciation of all things Palestinian is well known.” He added that he planned to attend the festival, saying that: “It’s a great opportunity for children to understand the wealth and joy of Palestinian literature and a little of the history of the region.”
Mr Corbyn added that the festival, which was organised by a branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign would be entirely neutral and educational, saying: “It’s not in any way biased, but a festival which will encourage children to broaden their horizons. The children were looking forward to it. I’d like to think there is still time to resolve the issue.”
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which Mr Corbyn remains a Patron, has had its own antisemitism problems.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has begun pre-enforcement proceedings against the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant. The pre-enforcement proceedings are a precursor to opening a full statutory investigation.
In recent months, eleven MPs have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism.
Almost 50,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”
