[On antisemitism in the Labour Party] It's funny these stories suddenly appeared when Jeremy Corbyn became leader, isn't it?

Jeremy Corbyn is leading the Labour Party into a dark place of ugly conspiracy theories and it has become a home for overt antisemites and antisemitism.
In 2018, Labour is not only a party with extravagant levels of tolerance for antisemitism but one which deliberately obstructs measures to counter hatred and punishes those who speak out against it.
Jeremy Corbyn needs to lead Labour out of this deep abyss and urgently demonstrate to the world Labour can return to being an anti-racist Party.

[On Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party.] Honestly, what a dumpster fire that whole period was, to the point that it’s almost hard to remember what actually happened. But just off the top of my head, here is a list of things I remember lefty non-Jews saying to me back then:
1. "I don’t think you should write about antisemitism because you obviously feel very passionately about it."
2. "What, exactly, are Jews afraid of here? It’s not like Corbyn is going to bring back pogroms."
3. "Jews have always voted right so of course, they don’t like Corbyn."
4. "It’s not that I don’t believe that you think he’s antisemitic. It’s just I think you’re being manipulated by bad-faith actors. So let me explain why you’re wrong ..."
5. "Come on, you don’t really think he really hates Jews."
All of the above were said to me by progressive people, people who would proudly describe themselves as anti-racism campaigners. And yet. When Jews expressed distress at, say, Corbyn describing Hamas as "friends", or attending a wreath-laying ceremony for the killers at the Munich Olympics, or bemoaning the lack of English irony among Zionists, we were fobbed off with snarky tweets and shrugged shoulders.
What we were seeing, they said, we were not actually seeing. You could not design an exercise more perfectly structured to cause madness. It was, to be blunt, gaslighting.
Anyway, that’s all in the past now, right? Well it is for me, because I’m walking away. A lot of illusions were broken, and I lost a lot of respect for a lot of people I thought I knew, but it turned out I didn’t. Not really. Not at all. So I have left the garden. And it feels bloody great.

Mr. Corbyn himself appears bemused. The mantra he repeats — that he is opposed to racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (he rarely speaks solely of anti-Semitism) — suggests that he is wedded to the idea that anti-Semitism is chiefly a right-wing phenomenon. It is true that Mr. Corbyn's predecessor as Labour leader, Ed Miliband, was the target of some thinly veiled anti-Semitic slurs from Britain's tabloid newspapers. But the notion that well-meaning people on the left might also harbor bias against Jews seems to pass him by.

[When asked who was responsible for continuing issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party] I sat in meetings with Jeremy Corbyn. Ultimately the leader is responsible and must take responsibility.

The antisemitism smear sword that was wielded at the behest of the Israeli government, specifically aimed at Jeremy Corbyn because he was left wing and he might turn into a political leader on the left in the United Kingdom who would actually stand up for human rights in general but specifically the rights of working people to represent themselves and have unions.

Whether it was his refusal to see what was wrong in a mural depicting Jews as hooked-nosed bankers making money off the backs of the poor; his suggestion that Jews might be born in this country but would never quite grasp "English irony"; his praise for a book that blamed 19th-century imperialism on finance houses run by "a single and peculiar race"; his warm embrace of a man who had repeated the ancient lie that Jews consume the blood of gentile children – pick your example – it was Corbyn who made British Jews feel an anxiety they had not known for the best part of a century. It was he who acted as a magnet, drawing in assorted cranks and bigots to join a party whose great name they soiled by their very presence.

Corbyn himself was imbued in antisemitic politics, and defended antisemites against Jews. Antisemitism, like other racisms, is about what you do, it's not about who you think you are.
Apologists are now saying that Corbyn didn't do enough to tackle antisemitism. That gets things the wrong way round. Corbyn was the antisemitism.

[On deciding to openly challenge Jeremy Corbyn] It was the Friday before the Monday of the Enough Is Enough demonstration outside Parliament.
I hadn't actually seen it [the mural] before then, despite it being discussed on blogs and written about in the JC before.
But I didn't get a proper response [from Mr Corbyn], then there was the fight to get the party to adopt the IHRA definition in full, which even at the last moment there was an attempt to undermine.
Then there was what became known as the 'summer of antisemitism' - all the connections Jeremy had made, his statements of July, August and September - it really has got worse.
More recently, two weeks in a row at the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, we had a motion that was unanimously supported by party colleagues calling on the leadership to release the information about antisemitism cases - and we were held with utter contempt.
This has been something the leadership has sought to dismiss and turn a blind eye to every step of the way.
That is why I have come to the conclusion the party is institutionally antisemitic.
I said 'Enough is Enough' and I challenged it from within. Now I mean Enough IS Enough.

[On antisemitism in the Labour Party] I'm not saying it never ever happens but it is a really dirty, lowdown trick, particularly the antisemitism smears. Many people in the Jewish community are appalled by what they see as the weaponisation of antisemitism for political ends.
It is pretty repellent to use that to attack somebody like Jeremy Corbyn, who has spent his whole life fighting for social justice and standing up for the underdog.
But I feel people have stopped listening to the smears and lies and dirty tricks. I think for all the talk about Venezuela and antisemitism, and the latest thing is sexism now, Jeremy’s overwhelming landslide victories in the leadership elections and the general election mean people have stopped listening to the smears.

Jewish organisations know full well that vilifying Corbyn as an antisemite would drastically reduce his appeal, as antisemitism resonates only among assorted antediluvians, troglodytes, and fruitcakes. In other words, the irrefutable proof that Corbyn’s pursuers don't believe a word they're saying is that by labelling him an antisemite they hope and expect to isolate him. However, as the accusation is manifestly a red herring, it's also possible that the current hysteria will pass most people by entirely, not because they are unconcerned by antisemitism but because it hardly occurs to them as an issue at all. If the controversy has an effect it will be restricted to exacerbating divisions in the Labour leadership and perhaps also adding to a more general perception that the stories promoted by mainstream media are fake news.

[Referring to Jeremy Corbyn, M]any Jews do worry that his past instinct, when faced with potential allies whom he deemed sound on Palestine, was to overlook whatever nastiness they might have uttered about Jews, even when that extended to Holocaust denial or the blood libel – the medieval calumny that Jews baked bread using the blood of gentile children. (To be specific: Corbyn was a long-time backer of a pro-Palestinian group [Deir Yassin Remembered] founded by Paul Eisen, attending its 2013 event even after Eisen had outed himself as a Holocaust denier years earlier. Similarly, Corbyn praised Islamist leader Sheikh Raed Salah even though, as a British court confirmed, Salah had deployed the blood libel.)

[If Mr Corbyn became PM, the UK] could end up with the first anti-Semitic leader of a Western nation since the Second World War

[On Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected leader of the British Labour Party later in September 2015] I find that he has very good sympathy and support for the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian struggle and he is frankly against the occupation, against the racist policy of Israel, against settlements.
According to his statements, I feel that he could be very close to the Palestinians, the Arabs and to the Muslims. He supports all the right things in the world regarding freedom, justice, dignity, the right of people under occupation to get their national rights.