Does Jeremy Corbyn Support Israel?

Maya Mizrachi Feb 26, 2025 Updated Aug 07, 2026 4 min read

Short answer: No. As of August 2026, Jeremy Corbyn does not support Israel. He is one of the most consistent and vocal critics of Israeli government policy in British politics, a longtime advocate for Palestinian statehood, a supporter of boycotting goods from Israeli settlements, and the current leader of a self-styled "Gaza Tribunal" examining alleged UK complicity in Israeli actions in Gaza. He has also drawn strong condemnation, including from Jewish organizations, for repeating an unverified organ-harvesting allegation against Israeli forces.

What Jeremy Corbyn has actually said and done

December 13, 2017: A spokesperson said Corbyn does not support the broad BDS movement or a blanket boycott of Israeli goods, but does back a targeted boycott of products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, according to Haaretz.
October 29, 2020: Labour leader Keir Starmer suspended Corbyn from the party after Corbyn responded to a UK Equality and Human Rights Commission finding of unlawful antisemitic harassment and discrimination within Labour by saying the scale of the problem had been "dramatically overstated," as reported by the BBC and Axios.
November 17, 2020: Labour's National Executive Committee readmitted Corbyn after a 19-day suspension, following a statement in which he said he regretted "the pain this issue has caused the Jewish community." Jewish community critics called the statement insincere, per the BBC.
September 3, 2025: Corbyn agreed to lead a "Gaza Tribunal," a two-day panel examining the United Kingdom's role in Israel's war in Gaza, which he framed as an effort to secure accountability for the Palestinian people, according to Al Jazeera.
September 22, 2025: Corbyn welcomed the UK government's recognition of Palestinian statehood as a "huge step forward" and called for further pressure on Israel, per Democracy Now.
February 12, 2026: Corbyn sent a public letter to UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting demanding accountability after leaked private messages showed Streeting had privately written in July 2025 that "Israel is committing war crimes." Corbyn argued continued UK support for Israel amounted to complicity, according to Al Jazeera.
February 26, 2026: Corbyn repeated an unverified claim, circulating in videos that week, that Israeli forces delivered bodies with organs removed to Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital. The American Jewish Committee, the Israeli Embassy, and an IDF spokesperson condemned the claim as an antisemitic "blood libel," and the IDF said it had not operated near Al-Shifa in months, as reported by The Jerusalem Post and Al Jazeera.

The bigger picture

Jeremy Corbyn, born in 1949, is the former leader of the UK Labour Party (2015 to 2020) and has sat in the House of Commons as MP for Islington North, since 2024 as an independent after Labour blocked him from standing as a Labour candidate, and since March 2026 as parliamentary leader of the new Your Party, which he co-founded with Zarah Sultana. He was blocked from standing as a Labour candidate. Israel and Palestine advocacy has been a defining feature of his decades in British politics, predating October 7, 2023, by many years. His record includes chairing pro-Palestinian solidarity groups, opposing UK arms sales to Israel, and calling for recognition of a Palestinian state long before it became mainstream UK policy.

His tenure as Labour leader was dominated by a prolonged antisemitism crisis inside the party, culminating in the 2020 EHRC finding of unlawful conduct and his temporary suspension. That controversy centers on how antisemitism complaints were handled within Labour rather than a specific position on Israeli statehood, but it is inseparable from how Jewish communal organizations in Britain view him. Corbyn has no Jewish-identity connection himself; his relevance to Jewish audiences comes entirely through his Israel and Palestine advocacy and the antisemitism controversy that marked his leadership, not personal heritage.

Since the Gaza war, Corbyn has intensified his activity: leading the Gaza Tribunal, calling for a UK government inquiry into British involvement, and, in February 2026, repeating an unsubstantiated organ-harvesting allegation against Israeli forces that Jewish organizations and Israeli officials denounced as a modern blood libel. He has consistently supported a targeted boycott of Israeli settlement goods and institutions tied to military research, while stopping short of endorsing the full BDS boycott of all Israeli goods. No record found shows Corbyn ever making a supportive statement about Israel, attending a pro-Israel event, or opposing any boycott of Israel; every retrieved record points the other direction.

The bottom line

Jeremy Corbyn does not support Israel. His decades-long public record is one of sustained criticism of Israeli government policy, advocacy for Palestinian statehood, support for a targeted boycott of Israeli settlement goods, and, in 2026, leadership of a tribunal alleging UK complicity in Israeli actions in Gaza plus a widely condemned antisemitic conspiracy claim about Israeli forces. There is no record of him expressing support for Israel at any point.

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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.