Mr. Corbyn himself appears bemused. The mantra he repeats — that he is opposed to racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (he rarely speaks solely of anti-Semitism) — suggests that he is wedded to the idea that anti-Semitism is chiefly a right-wing phenomenon. But the notion that well-meaning people on the left might also harbor bias against Jews seems to pass him by. This anti-American, anti-imperialist strain of the British left has deep roots, but the 2003 Iraq war gave it a new impetus, and opened up a broad rift in the Labour Party. For many British Jews and others, Mr. Corbyn thus personifies a tolerance among parts of the left for reactionary Islamists that is at best naïve, at worst malign — not least because it overlooks Islamism’s history of murderous repression toward democratic socialists in Muslim-majority countries.

Source: New York Times September 11, 2016 09:00 UTC