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British Jews slam ‘McCarthyite’ smear bids

DOZENS of Jewish campaigners sent an open letter to the Jewish Chronicle yesterday blasting the paper’s “McCarthyite” smear campaign against Labour leadership favourite Jeremy Corbyn.

The group of 47 people — including poets, actors and university lecturers — accused the newspaper of branding Mr Corbyn an “anti-semite” by touting supposed links to Holocaust deniers.

“Your assertion that your attack on Jeremy Corbyn is supported by ‘the vast majority of British Jews’ is without foundation,” said the letter.

“We do not accept that you speak on behalf of progressive Jews in this country. You speak only for Jews who support Israel, right or wrong.”

“There is something deeply unpleasant and dishonest about your McCarthyite guilt by association technique,” it added.

It follows an article published by the Chronicle the week before listing seven “concerns” that Mr Corbyn “must answer” in relation to attending events and sharing platforms with groups such as the Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR) campaign and Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard — also a Daily Express columnist — told Channel 4 News: “I think there is a deep sense of foreboding in the Jewish community about some of the people Jeremy Corbyn associates with.

“I’m not accusing him of being an anti-semite. What we want to know is answers to the question ‘why have you associated yourself with some of these people?’”

Self-confessed Holocaust denier Paul Eisen and cleric Raed Salah — who was jailed for accusing Jews of using children’s blood to make bread — founded DYR.

Mr Corbyn told Channel 4 that he once made a donation around 15 years ago for the village of Deir Yassin — where zionist paramilitaries murdered at least 600 Palestinian people — but said claims that he “put his chequebook on the table” and supports the founders are wrong.

In Monday’s interview C4 hack Cathy Newman badgered the Islington North MP by repeatedly asking questions he had already answered.

He warned her against “putting an awful lot of words into [his] mouth” after she kept asking him whether it was a “misjudgement” to throw money in a collection bucket — despite him having made it clear that there was no evidence the founders were anti-semitic at the time.

He told Ms Newman: “I have no contact whatsoever now with Paul Eisen and DYR. I did attend a number of events concerning DYR some years ago.

“The only donation, if I made any, would have been in the collecting bucket when it went around the room.”

He went on to say: “Holocaust denial is vile and wrong. We have a duty to oppose racism wherever it raises its head, in whatever form.”

Ms Newman — who was exposed for misleading her Twitter followers with claims of being “ushered out” of a mosque earlier this year — was criticised on social media for her interviewing style.

People called for Channel 4 to dismiss her for attempting to “manipulate” viewers during the “attacking interrogation.”

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