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Corbyn could be recalled to antisemitism inquiry

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Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, could be recalled to face further questions at a parliamentary inquiry on antisemitism.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said that it would consider on Tuesday whether to summon Mr Corbyn to reappear following complaints about some of the answers he gave last Monday.

Mr Vaz said that he “had received two letters asking that Jeremy Corbyn be summoned to appear before the committee, as well as other complaints”.

One letter was said to have come from Conservative MP Tim Loughton, while the other was from an unnamed Labour politician.

The JC understands Mr Corbyn's evidence has been challenged on four points.

Mr Corbyn was asked by the committee about his links to Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. Mr Corbyn said he had not attended any event organised by Mr Eisen since his views on the Shoah became known.

But the JC had reported in August last year that Mr Corbyn had been at an event in April 2013 run by Mr Eisen’s Deir Yassin Remembered group - four months after Mr Eisen wrote a blog outlining his Shoah denial.

A complaint was also made to Mr Vaz about Mr Corbyn's comments relating to Paul Flynn, who has been appointed as Labour's Shadow Leader of the Commons.

Mr Flynn had claimed in 2011 that Britain’s then ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, had “dual loyalties” because he was Jewish.

Mr Corbyn told the committee that he believed Mr Flynn's comments had been only about Mr Gould's "political views" and had not referred to his faith. But Mr Flynn had commented specifically on Mr Gould's "Jewish loyalty" in the remarks five years ago.

It is understood complaints have also been lodged about the Labour leader's comments on the Poale Zion group and his support for controversial Church of England vicar Stephen Sizer.

In 1984, Mr Corbyn is said to have supported a conference which proposed breaking Labour's links to the Jewish Poale Zion movement. He told the committee last week that the group's membership of Labour was proof that the party did not encourage antisemitism.

Mr Corbyn also told the panel that he supported Rev Sizer for his past work helping Palestinians, but one of his letters written in support of the vicar in 2012 came after Rev Sizer linked to a website which appeared to support Holocaust denial and warn of a Zionist conspiracy to take over the world. Mr Corbyn claimed in his letter to the church that a "technical oversight" was to blame.

During his evidence, Mr Corbyn said that he regretted having called Hamas and Hezbollah “friends” and acknowledged that the Hamas charter was antisemitic.

On Thursday, a committee spokeswoman told the JC it had not yet considered whether Mr Corbyn would be recalled over his responses.

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