I am British.

I have only ever been a British citizen.

I have had family living in this country for over 250 years.

I am also a Zionist.

I believe that the Jewish people have a right to a country in their historic homeland. Which, despite everything you may have heard, is the basic definition of Zionism.

This is what Jeremy Corbyn is revealed to have said, in 2013, about a group of British "Zionists":

“They clearly have two problems. One is they don't want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don't understand English irony either.'

 

Now, I want you to try and imagine a UK politician saying something like that about any other group of people living in this country.

It is, quite frankly, a statement you would expect from the leader of the British National Party. Which is presumably why Nick Griffin, the notorious leader of that vile far-right group, gloatingly endorsed it on Twitter.

I know exactly what the line from Corbyn supporters is going to be, because I've already seen it being used online.

Zionist doesn't necessarily mean Jew.

That's true. There are many Christian Zionists, for example.

But you would have to have very few brain cells indeed not to comprehend that for over a century, “Zionist” has been used by racists on the far-right, and increasingly on the far-left, as a euphemism for “Jews.” 

But it goes beyond that. Because I know exactly who that group of “Zionists” are who Jeremy Corbyn was referring to.

They go along to such events because they are not willing to let what is very often open hatred and bigotry go undocumented and unchallenged.

To a man and woman, they are all Jewish. With no disrespect meant to non-Jewish Zionists, this group of activists are driven to attend ostensibly "anti-Israel" events, week in and week out, year in and year out, because they know where such hatred can lead, in a way that many non-Jews never could.

Whether Jeremy Corbyn knows this or not is, to be clear, not the real issue. Because from his language, it's clear that to him, to be “Zionist” in this country means to be foreign, out of place here. 

To say, about a group of people who “have probably lived here all their lives” that “they don't understand English irony”, is to define them as foreigners. Not just foreigners, but Bad Foreigners. They don't fit in here. They don't belong.

If you watch the video, in the next breath, Jeremy Corbyn turns towards the Palestinian envoy to the UK, Manuel Hassassian, and says “but Manuel does  understand English irony.”

For Corbyn, the Palestinian envoy to the UK is the “good foreigner” - he understands, he gets it, he's one of us - while the “Zionists”, who have “probably lived here their whole lives”, are not. They clearly just don't understand what it means to be English. 

But there is one more point to make, that many people appear to have missed, which was summed up well by one Twitter user:

To understand Zionism, you must study history. You must study the many centuries of oppression of Jews, and dependency for safety and survival on the whims of local leaders in Europe, Asia and North Africa. You must study everything that happened which brought the vast majority of the Jewish people to believe that, even if they did not live there themselves, a Jewish State was needed, and the realisation that it needed to be in the place where every Jewish prayer points to it being.

Corbyn doesn't understand that, and never will. For him, history appears to begin and end with anti-colonial struggle. To listen to him is to listen to someone who clearly has never read anything that did not concur completely with his world view. 

So for Jeremy Corbyn to suggest that Zionists “do not want to study history”, is perhaps the biggest irony of all.

At least, I think it is. I have a degree in history from an English university, but I don't have a degree in irony. Maybe Jeremy Corbyn can teach me.