On Saturday, Britain’s Labour Party nominated a hard-left liberal to lead their party, a man who called bin Osama bin Laden’s death a “tragedy.” Yet, although the New York Times acknowledged Jeremy Corbyn’s liberalism, nowhere in writer Stephen Castle’s article was any mention of his comments about bin Laden, nor was there discussion of his virulently anti-Israel positions.
In contrast, the Times of Israel described him as “widely regarded as one of the British MPs most hostile to Israel.” That paper continued:
Last month, Britain’s top Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle, claimed that Corbyn, who has ties to the Socialist Campaign Group, Amnesty International and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, was linked to “Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright anti-Semites.”
Instead of mentioning these things, Castle’s piece in the New York Times began:
After three decades as a political outsider and clarion of the left, Jeremy Corbyn on Saturday won the leadership of Britain’s opposition Labour Party with an emphatic victory and a program that includes expanding the economy, scrapping nuclear missiles and unpicking the centrist policies of his predecessors, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
While the New York Times called Corbyn “hard-left,” Israel and Jews went unmentioned. Also ignored were the new Labour leader’s comments on bin Laden. As the British Telegraph explained:
Jeremy Corbyn has come under fire for saying it was a "tragedy" that Osama bin Laden was killed by the United States rather than being put on trial.
…
In a clip from the Press TV show The Agenda, Mr Corbyn is heard complaining that there had been "no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest him and put him on trial, to go through that process". He went on: "This was an assassination attempt, and is yet another tragedy, upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy.
On August 31, the Times did highlight Corbyn’s bin Laden remarks. But considering now that Corbyn has now been elected as Labour’s leader, it would have been appropriate for the so-called "paper of record" to mention these things again.
