I just watched a video of Jeremy Corbyn talking to a journalist about exactly what happened at a cemetery in Tunisia in 2014. For anyone who has been mercifully deprived of access to news for the last few days, the story revolves around exactly who was being commemorated that day – victims of an Israeli bombing, or Palestinians linked to the terrorist organisation Black September.
Corbyn’s own account is confusing: his Morning Star article at the time referred to wreaths being laid (passive tense) to “others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991”. He might have got the date wrong, and be referring to three Palestinians killed in Tunis in 1991; or the place wrong, and be referring to a Black September operative killed in Paris in 1992. For what it’s worth, I find this account by SOAS lecturer Yair Wallach convincing, and assume that Corbyn was thinking of the first group, which includes “Abu Iyad”, otherwise known as Salaf Khalaf, whom Wallach describes as an ideologue who might be connected to Black September, but was “also involved in pushing the PLO to recognise Israel” and in the end of the PLO’s armed struggle.
Good reasons to think Khalaf was involved in targeting civilians, maybe Munich, and other attacks. Good reasons to think he was fully behind the move towards negotiations and end of the PLO armed struggle. Does it make him worthy of commemoration? your call.
— Yair Wallach (@YairWallach) August 13, 2018
As I’ve written before, by this point I feel as though everyone has picked a side
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