
A major Jewish donor to Britain's Labour Party has compared supporters of party head Jeremy Corbyn to Nazi storm troopers, JTA reported Sunday.
Michael Foster, whose family in the last election contributed more than $500,000 to the party, in an op-ed Sunday in the Daily Mail newspaper referred to Corbyn backers as Sturmabteilung, or SA.
Foster had sued to stop Corbyn from running again for the party leadership without first getting the backing of at least 51 members of Parliament as proscribed by the party's rules, according to JTA.
Corbyn recently lost a vote of no confidence by Labour parliamentarians and faced mass resignations from his top team.
Britain's Supreme Court ruled last week against the Foster suit. In the op-ed, Foster alleged anti-Semitism from Corbyn supporters.
"Oppose them as a Jewish donor and the riposte from Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s mouthpiece, is that you are part of a Blairite, Right-wing ‘conspiracy’ (the ancient racist rhetoric is that Jews don’t act alone, the malevolent Jew always conspires) to destabilize the democratically and legitimately elected leader," he wrote, as quoted by JTA.
Corbyn has been widely criticized for calling Hamas and Hezbollah his "friends" and for outright refusing to condemn those two terrorist organizations despite being urged to do so by local Jewish groups.
Letters that were exposed in June also reveal that Corbyn in the past described Israel’s politicians as “criminals,” called for them to be banned from Britain and for trade sanctions to be imposed on the Jewish state.
Corbyn was accused by Jewish community representatives as well as senior Labour members and backers of generating an atmosphere that encouraged expressions of anti-Semitism due to his comments. In recent months, Labour has suspended dozens of members due to anti-Semitic statements.
Last week, Parry Mitchell, a Jewish member of Britain's House of Lords, threatened to resign if Corbyn is re-elected as Labour Party leader.