British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was among a number of prominent public commentators and politicians who were members of a Facebook group comprised of Holocaust deniers, white supremacists and anti-Semites, the British Jewish News reported on Wednesday. A number of Labour party members have been suspended and investigations begun after an exhaustive investigation into the group, according to the report. A 280-page report, titled “Anti-Semitism inside Palestine Live” published by activist and blogger David Collier, claims to unearth a sordid 3,000-strong social media network of anti-Semitism on the left that includes prominent public commentators and politicians including Corbyn. According to Collier, Corbyn was a member of the “Palestine Live” group at the time he was elected Labour leader in 2015, which hosted people such as Max Blumenthal, a controversial speaker accused of anti-Semitism. Collier, who infiltrates pro-Palestinian events “undercover,” writes, “It seems as if [Jeremy Corbyn] was part of a rabidly anti-Semitic Facebook Group, along with Paul Eisen, Gilad Atzmon, numerous other Holocaust Deniers, hard-core anti-Semites, white supremacists, and all the other wretched political ideologies that gather together to pretend it is about the Palestinians, and not the Jews.” “The sheer horror of what you see is intense. Corbyn was [a member of the Facebook group] in late 2014, he may have joined a year earlier, and every indication is, that he stayed in the group until shortly after he became leader of the Labour Party. Jenny Tonge is still a member, David Ward too. It just shows how blind everyone is to anti-Jewish racism,” adds Collier. Ward said in 2013 Jews had not learned from the murder of six million in the Holocaust in their treatment of Palestinian Arabs. During Israel's conflict with Gaza in 2014, Ward tweeted: "The big question is - if I lived in #Gaza would I fire a rocket? - probably yes ." As for Tonge, she was suspended by the Lib Dems in late 2016 after hosting a meeting at the House of Lords in which one audience member blamed Jews for the Holocaust and Israel was compared to ISIS. In October of that year, she claimed that Israel's treatment of Palestinian Arabs was behind the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain. Collier, who has previously posted reports showcasing anti-Semitism in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, refers most of his evidence by showing the Corbyn had been tagged in posts from members, and by showing how members had met a member of his social media team. “There is no suggestion Jeremy Corbyn shares the views of many inside the group,” writes Collier. “What this provides is evidence he knows he is a member.” A spokesperson for Corbyn told Jewish News , “Jeremy condemns anti-Semitism in all its forms in the strongest possible terms. He does not want the support of anti-Semites, who have no place whatsoever in the Labour movement. This Facebook group is being investigated and if Labour members are found to have posted anti-Semitic material, disciplinary action will be taken.” Corbyn has increasingly come under fire for his failure to properly deal with the anti-Semitism within the ranks of the Labour party. Over the last several years, dozens of Labour members have been suspended over their anti-Semitic statements. Corbyn himself been criticized in the past due to his calling Hamas and Hezbollah his "friends" and for outright refusing to condemn those two terrorist organizations despite being urged to do so by local Jewish groups. In 2016, however, the Labour leader said that he regretted making those comments.
