The Guardian has rejected a complaint that a letter which claimed Jewish critics of Jeremy Corbyn may be acting under the influence of “their Israeli contacts” was antisemitic.

JC editor Stephen Pollard made the complaint when the letter was published last Friday

It was sent by three “members of a Jewish family” – Lydia, Joel and Andrew Samuels and was one of several printed about Mr Corbyn and his links to Shoah deniers and other antisemites.

The Samuels wrote: “Influential sections of the Jewish community, maybe guided by their Israeli contacts, are frightened that a notable critic of Israel’s policies and actions might attain a position of prominence in British politics.”

In response to Mr Pollard’s complaint, Barbara Harper, a Guardian associate editor, rejected the suggestion the letter had been anti-Jewish.

She wrote: “As you know we always take any allegation of antisemitism seriously. You say that the letter openly expresses the idea that Jews owe their allegiance to a foreign power.

“We have contacted the letter writers, who are adamant that they did not say, and neither did they mean, that Jews in Britain ‘owe allegiance’ to Israel and that there was no intention to evoke that trope.

“I do not accept that the wording of this letter evokes, deliberately or otherwise, the antisemitic slur that you see in it.”
Ms Harper said the Guardian would be prepared to publish a letter in response to the Samuels’ family’s own letter.

In his complaint, Mr Pollard had written: “I am sure I do not need to point out to you that this is one of the oldest, most explicit antisemitic memes in existence – the idea that Jews are guided by, and owe their allegiance to, a foreign power (Israel, in the modern world).

“I am, quite obviously, one of those who is accused, since my newspaper has led the way in asking questions of Jeremy Corbyn.
“I should point out that not once have we accused him of antisemitism. Nor have we mentioned the word Israel.

“Not one of the stories we have published has been about Israel; they have all been about antisemitism on the part of his associates.”