TerrorismCorbyn pressed on wreath laying at the grave of a Black September terrorist
In 2014, Jeremy Corbyn, now leader of the Labor Party but then a back bencher, was invited to Tunisia to attend a conference on the Middle East. He used the occasion to visit the cemetery where several PLO terrorists are buried (the PLO had moved its headquarters from Beirut to Tunisia in 1982). Corbyn claims that he laid a wreath at the grave of a PLO leader who was killed in an Israeli commando raid in 1985 – but pictures show that he laid a wreath about 20 meters away, at the grave of a Black September terrorist who took part in the killing of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The leader of the British Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, argued on Twitter Tuesday evening with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a visit Corbyn made to a cemetery in Tunisia in 2014.
Netanyhau condemned Corbyn for comparing Israelis to Nazis and paying his respects to a Palestinian terrorist who was among the perpetrators of the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Gamers.
Netanyahu posted on Twitter: “The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre [ and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone – left, right and everything in between.”
In response, Corbyn said: “Israeli PM @Netanyahu’s claims about my actions and words are false. What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children.”
He then added: “The nation state law sponsored by @Netanyahu’s government discriminates against Israel’s Palestinian minority. I stand with the tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel demonstrating for equal rights at the weekend in Tel Aviv.”
This Twitter argument came at the end of two days confusion about what exactly Jeremy Corbyn was doing at a cemetery in Tunis in 2014. Corbyn first claimed the wreath laying was to commemorate senior leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who were killed in Tunisia by Israeli commandos in 1985.
Pictures of the ceremony at the cemetery, however, show Corbyn and his entourage laying a wreath not at that memorial to the PLO leaders who were killed in 1985, but about 20 meters away, at the graves of PLO terrorists who carried out the Munich attack in 1972.
When confronted with evidence that the ceremony he participated in was for the 1972 terrorists, not the 1985 PLO leaders, Corbyn told U.K. media: “I was present when it was laid. I don’t think I was actually involved in it.”
