The chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council has condemned Jeremy Corbyn for not visiting Israel when he was on a visit to neighbouring Jordan.
In a letter to The Times, Jonathan Goldstein said that the Labour leader missed an opportunity to learn more about the region.
Mr Goldstein compared Mr Corbyn to the Duke of Cambridge, who was also in Jordan last week on the first leg of his tour of the Middle East that saw him go to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Mr Goldstein praised the Duke for learning about co-existence projects during his trip “and of the vibrancy of the region’s people.”
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
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