Controversial U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn attended the wedding in London in 2010 of senior Palestinian diplomat Husam Zomlot, who has since been accused of Holocaust denial, according to a report in the Daily Mail on Sunday.
The paper featured a photo of Corbyn, then a Labour backbencher, apparently proposing a toast in Zomlot’s honor at the wedding. Zomlot was then serving in the United Kingdom, and was later named the Palestinian ambassador to the United States.
In the same year, Corbyn also called Zomlot his “close friend” and thanked him for his contribution to anti-Israeli group Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
According to the Mail on Sunday, in 2014, Zomlot told the BBC that Israel was “fabricating” stories about the Islamic State beheading of journalists “as if they are fabricating also the story of the Holocaust, that it happened in Europe.”
In another instance, Zomlot also said that Israel was established on the “skulls of our [Palestinian] nation,” and that it was carrying out an “ethnic cleansing campaign.”
It is unclear if Corbyn ever distanced himself from those remarks or from Zomlot.
Sunday’s report is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding Corbyn’s positions on Israel and Jews since he was elected party chief in 2015. In recent weeks, disturbing images of Corbyn and remarks made by him have come to light. Last week, a photo showed him placing a wreath at the grave of a Palestinian terrorist who masterminded the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
A Labour spokesman did not go out of his way to distance Corbyn from the Palestinian diplomat on Sunday.
“Jeremy has been a longstanding supporter of Palestinian rights. He supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and a negotiated settlement that delivers peace and security for both peoples,” said the spokesman.
“Husam Zomlot is a leading Palestinian political figure and effectively ambassador to the U.S., having played the same role in Britain. He has made clear he is not a Holocaust-denier—and did so in the same BBC broadcast that is the subject of controversy. Jeremy attended his wedding in London in 2010, along with a wide range of British and other international diplomats.”
