JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s foreign minister said he hopes British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn loses his country’s national elections.
Israel Katz made the statement on Thursday, a week after he told reporters that the Israeli government had not discussed what steps it would take if Corbyn was elected.
“I won’t meddle in internal elections, but I personally hope that he won’t be elected, with this whole wave of anti-Semitism,” Katz told Army Radio in an interview.
“I hope the other side wins,” he said.
Polls show Labour coming in behind the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Boris Johnson in elections scheduled for Dec. 12.
On Tuesday, Corbyn said in an interview that he was “very sorry for everything that’s happened” with anti-Semitic incidents involving party members. The apology came days after an interview with the BBC in which Corbyn repeatedly declined to apologize or express regret, instead repeating the party line opposing racism.
Corbyn has been dogged by criticism over anti-Semitism in Labour since his election as party leader in 2015. Some party members have been kicked out for anti-Semitic rhetoric, but others have been readmitted and thousands of complaints have gone unprocessed. Corbyn himself has called Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends.”
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