Jeremy Corbyn refuses to say if he is an anti-Zionist
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to confirm he is an anti-Zionist. In a video posted by the lobbying watchdog Spinwatch and others, he was asked if he would follow the example of Zarah Sultana.
In response to what she called anti-Semitism “smears” ten days ago, Sultana said she was proudly anti-Zionist:
The smears won’t work this time.
I say it loudly and proudly: I’m an anti-Zionist.
Print that. https://t.co/HSZAWnO4cJ
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) August 17, 2025
As the Canary reported at the time:
It’s a renowned tactic of Israeli propaganda to accuse those objecting to the fascism of Zionism as actually being anti-Semitic. However, Sultana quickly nipped that shit in the bud.
We examined Sultana’s various criticisms of Corbynism here.
“He refused”
The post in question shows activist Ani Says asking Jeremy Corbyn to follow follow Sultana’s example:
Earlier today, a long-time anti-Zionist supporter of Jeremy Corbyn asked him whether he would follow Zarah Sultana’s lead and openly declare himself an anti-Zionist.
He refused.
The Instagram post said:
When @ani.says2 pressed further, she was pushed aside by Oly Durose, Corbyn’s adviser and former aide to David Lammy, who urged journalists to turn their cameras off.
The post also asks:
Why is Jeremy Corbyn, even after leaving the genocide-supporting Labour Party and setting up a new left-wing alternative, still refusing to oppose Zionism as a Jewish supremacist ideology?
It adds that “another Corbyn adviser, James Schneider” also recently “refused to say he was an anti-Zionist”:
Any anti-racist must by definition be anti-Zionist.
View this post on Instagram
Jeremy Corbyn’s response going viral
Ani Says later posted further comments on her social media. She said she’d been a fan of Jeremy Corbyn for nearly two decades and had voted or him many times.
Says said that as someone with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), she saw the world in very black and white ways. And as a committed pro-Palestine activist, she couldn’t understand why Sultana had stated she was anti-Zionist but Corbyn had not yet done so.
She said she felt sad and disappointed about the incident.
Featured image via screengrab
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Likely because Corbyn is considerably older and more worldly wise than Millennials. He has also spent considerable time with the many Jewish communities in his constituency, and understands the nuances WITHIN those communities.
Fx, there are at least, as I’ve understood it, 3 levels of meaning to “Zionism”.
1. The ancient, traditional meaning to fx the Hassidim: The original Covenant with JHVH, where dick chopping and no pork (And the right mother) means you are of Hebrew people.
2. The idea that the Jews should also have a homeland – which DOESN’T mean it has to be in Palestine. It could be in Ohio, fx. Or Ukraine.
3. Israeli supremacism, Nazism included. Perhaps better called Zionazism (To annoy P Morgan & ilk as much as possible, as a bonus).
While most people rather understandably only hear about #3 these days, Corbyn has to take into account especially #1. The Hassis being one of the oldest and proudest anti-Zionazi movements in history, after all.
As the old saying goes, the wise hesitate, while the uninformed jump in with both boots.
Jeremy Corbyn well knows that without millennia of Jew hatred, Zionism would be unnecessary.
All Corbyn needs to say is that he is opposed to a Zionism that excludes non-Jews and denies them equal rights, and that happens to be the Zionism that is dominant in Israel today. If nothing else it will discombobulate liberal Zionists, who as Caitlin Johnstone has rightly said are now in continuing to defend Israel are either suckers or liars.
I won’t mince my words, Zionism is the same as Nazism and trying to say there is a religious Zionism that isn’t a racial supremacist ideology is nonsense. Corbyn threw good people under the bus to appease Zionist/Nazis. I think Sultana may very well be the leader of Your Party and to be fair to Corbyn he may well understand what I have just written as I believe he’s on honest man.
Corbyn knows the downside of giving a carefully considered response to a complex, multifaceted question (see Gnu’s excellent summary above) — it antagonises those looking for ‘black and white’ sound bites. Noam Chomsky and his wife lived on a socialist kibbutz for a year. Are we going to cancel Chomsky now?