‘Marxism 2022’: Scandal-Ridden Anti-Israel Speakers Featured at UK Event

An event called “Marxism 2022” will give a platform to speakers who have promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and demonized the Jewish state.

By United with Israel Staff

The UK’s Queen Mary University of London will host an event called “Marxism 2022” in July, which features speakers who have been plagued by antisemitism scandals.

One of the most well-known voices at “Marxism 2022” will be Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the UK’s Labour Party. Corbyn presided over the party during a period in which it committed “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination,” according to the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, and faced persistent accusations of promoting Jew-hatred.

“Under his leadership, and the semi-respectable sheen of anti-Zionism — let’s have a Rainbow Nation with Hamas! — the poison spreads,” wrote former Chief Rabbi of England Jonathan Sacks in The Spectator in 2019. “The libel that the Jews are the enemy of everything holy (formerly Christ, now socialism) has returned.”

In a 2018 interview with The New Statesman, Rabbi Sacks warned that Corbyn gives “support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate, who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map,” adding that the then-Labour leader uses “the language of classic pre-war European anti-Semitism.”

Corbyn was disciplined due to his rejection of the report’s findings.

In addition to Corbyn, the Jewish Chronicle (JC) profiled several of the other presenters at “Marxism 2020,” which include “speakers who have praised terrorists, endorsed 9/11 conspiracy theorists and blamed Israel for antisemitism,” noted the JC.

The speakers flagged by the JC include rapper Lowkey, whom the Board of Deputies identified as a “conspiracy theorist whose delusional output has long been of concern within the Jewish community”.

“The anti-Zionist performer has endorsed a campaign of vandalism against Israeli businesses in the UK, pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories in a poem, and recently claimed on Iran’s Press TV that the media has ‘weaponized the Jewish heritage’ of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to ‘stave off’ inquiries about far-right groups in the country,” reported the JC.

Other speakers include Shahd Abusalama, a Palestinian academic who “praised Jew-killing terrorists as ‘heroes’ and has written that ‘Zionist lobbies…buy presidents,’” and Irish politician Richard Boyd Barret, “who was warned last year by a government minister that his shocking comments about Israel had been raised at a ‘global level.’”

According to a Queen Mary University of London spokesman quoted by the JC: “We encourage a wide range of views, political as well as academic, which might entail the airing of opinions and ideas that are unpopular, controversial or provocative Our approach to promoting freedom of speech is set within our values. We stand against racism in all its forms. As a University we have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. This covers all activities of the University.”