One of Labour’s most notorious anti-Zionist campaigners has called for the “overthrow” of the Israeli state and called it “historical invention” to claim that Jews were expelled from the region 2,000 years ago under the Romans.

Moshe Machover – who is Hampstead and Kiburn Labour Party’s elected political officer – used a speech at the Communist Party of Great Britain’s (CPGB) annual Communist University event in central London on August 18 to say: “People are afraid to say it.

“Imagine Jeremy Corbyn saying the Palestine/Israel conflict should be resolved by first of all overthrowing the Zionist regime - the Zionist regime is the obstacle. Obviously it is.”

The Tel Aviv-born activist’s contribution to the week-long event at Goldsmiths College was a lengthy lecture entitled ‘One state, two states – two impossibilities’ in which he described hopes of a two-state solution as a “deception” which “should be exposed.”

Mr Machover – who has previously escaped expulsion from Labour over his involvement with the CPGB in a high profile case in which Mr Corbyn’s office admitted intervening – also used his latest speech on the Middle East to dismiss claims around the Jewish right of return to Israel.

In hugely inflammatory remarks as he discussed why he supported calls for Palestinian refugees' right of return into modern-day Israel, Mr Machover said: “They claim the right of return of the Jews to the Holy Land after 2,000 years.

“Jews supposedly expelled from Palestine – actually it never happened. It’s a historical invention, fiction.”

He added: “Their ideology says that Jews were expelled by the Romans 2,000 years ago. But not the right of return of the Palestinians after 70 (years).”

Arguing why the Palestinian right of return must be among anti-Zionist campaigners' list of demands, Mr Machover said it would also be resisted by Israel because ultimately their return “would destroy the Jewish character of Israel”.

He told the audience that there were “good people” who had backed calls for a two-state solution merely because it “looks good so why not support it.”

But he added that “now the deception is coming to an end.”

Mr Machover then turned his attention to arguments over the establishment of a one-state solution but insisted: “The Zionist regime is not going to accept a one state solution that is anywhere near equal rights.”

He then added: “Anything that gives equality would require the overthrow of the Zionist regime. Which is revolution.”

Then taking issue with those who suggest a one-state solution could echo the “rainbow nation” of South Africa, Mr Machover said: “A Marxist cannot avoid looking at the situation from a Marxist point of view. South Africa was very different.”

He then suggested there was no way of “overthrowing the Zionist regime without the consent and participation of the Hebrew working class.”

Saying that he would not see this within his lifetime, Mr Machover said he believed there would be uprisings across the wider Arab regions in countries such as Egypt and Syria.

Mr Machover claimed that eventually the "Hebrew working class" would be prepared to give up their national rights as Israelis to become a part of the wider new regional working class.

The JC has approached the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour for comment.

Earlier this year, the JC revealed how Mr Corbyn had “raised concerns” about Labour's initial  decision to expel Mr Machover from the Party in October 2017  after a controversial essay he wrote about the Nazis and Zionists was distributed at party conference.

The Labour leader complained in October 2017 to then General Secretary Iain McNicol about the expulsion of Mr Machover, who was later readmitted, after receiving “many complaints from members to the party”.

Mr Machover's article, which appeared in a magazine produced by the Labour Party Marxists group, which is closely linked to the CPGB, quoted Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Final Solution, to support the notion that the Nazis supported Zionists before the Holocaust.

Labour’s John Mann and Holocaust Educational Trust Chief Executive Karen Pollock were among those to attack the publication of the article and called for those linked to the group to be expelled from the party.

Mr Machover was initially expelled from Labour under the party’s auto-exclusion rules which bar membership of another political party.

But he argued he was not a member of the CPGB despite having articles appear in their Weekly Worker newspaper and his regular appearances at the their events.

Labour sources confirmed Mr Corbyn’s office was involved in Mr Machover’s case but insisted staff made the decision to reverse his expulsion, not the leader himself.