Mick Hartley

Melanie Phillips, in the Times (£), on the David Collier "Palestine Live" exposé:

The left, though, believes with perfect faith that it stands only for good things such as conscience and human rights. Accordingly, only the “right” can be antisemitic. The “anti-racist” left believes that it is itself utterly incapable of antisemitism. So it is blind to both its own behaviour and the noxious company it keeps.

It supports the Palestinians because it believes that, like the rest of the developing world, they are victims of the West and so their terrorism and rejection of Israel must be excused or condoned as “resistance”. Yet the Palestinians, along with much of the Arab and Muslim world, constantly pump out Nazi-style antisemitic libels against Israel and the Jewish people.

The left cannot admit that those it supports as victims are in fact profound antisemites. So those who say antisemitism hides under the camouflage of anti-Zionism are accused of trying to sanitise the “crimes” of Israel. Thus this most poisonous thought circle is closed….

Corbyn and his comrades assume it is simply impossible for the Labour Party to be antisemitic. Believing its own mythology of unchallengeable virtue, the left is unable to recognise that the hideous face snarling from the mirror is its own.