Jeremy Corbyn didn’t visit Israel because of his ‘narrow view’ of politics, JLC chair says

Mr Corbyn was in Jordan touring refugee camps housing Syrian and Palestinian refugees just before Prince William arrived in the Middle East. 

However he “did not take the chance to learn about the people of Israel or about the complexities of the political situation,” Mr Goldstein said.

“An aspirant prime minister would have gone from Jordan to Israel and the Palestinian territories."

He said the fact that Mr Corbyn did not visit Israel or the Palestinian territories “speaks volumes about his willingness to learn anything outside his narrow view of foreign policy.

“If Mr Corbyn aspires to be a statesman rather than an activist he has to realise that there are no political conflicts where the narrative of one side is always right and the other side is always wrong.”

JLC Chair Jonathan Goldstein has written a letter to @thetimes about a missed opportunity for Jeremy Corbyn https://t.co/PCUuxuXHae pic.twitter.com/rARM4lVd8j

— The JLC (@JLC_uk) 29 June 2018

 

In April 2016 Mr Corbyn failed to reply to an invitation from the the Labour Party in Israel inviting him to Jerusalem to see the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

Israel’s opposition leader Isaac Herzog and leader of the Israeli Labour Party, responded to the antisemitism row by inviting senior members of the Labour Party - including Jeremy Corybn - to visit Yad Vashem as a reminder of the results of antisemitism.