Let’s be clear. The unease felt in the Jewish community at the prospect of a Corbyn victory was real, and crossed communal lines.
Protesters throw a statue of slave trader Edward Colston into the Bristol harbour, during a Black Lives Matter protest rally on June 7, 2020, in response to the recent killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, USA, that has led to protests in many countries and across the US. (photo: AP Images)
Jewish lives matter less.
That’s the only logical conclusion of the British left’s mass support for the toppling of slave trade-era statues in Britain in the wake of the George Floyd protests – in some cases, the very people unmoved by the Jewish community’s fear at the hostility they found in Corbyn’s circles just last year.
“It is understandable that people in Bristol have finally become exasperated with the years of debate on having a statue of a man whose wealth was founded on slavery – as Edward Colston’s was – and have taken action,” tweeted Jeremy Corbyn, after a crowd in the English town brought down the figure of an eighteenth-century slave-trader.
That, coming from a man who saw no evil in an East London mural of bankers counting money on a Monopoly-style board supported by the backs of black men, and which the local mayor said “perpetuated antisemitic propaganda,” spoke loud and clear.
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