Yesterday, the Labor leadership released a report on its formal inquiry into anti-Semitism in its ranks. In his accompanying speech, the party’s head, Jeremy Corbyn, tellingly told his constituents that “our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations.” James Sorene, director of the Britain-Israel Communications & Research Center, responds to the report with an official statement (free registration required):

We regret that the inquiry has failed to recognize the dangerous, systematic demonization of Israel by those Labor-party members who cross the line into anti-Semitism and attempt to disguise it as anti-Zionism. There are sadly no recommendations [in the report] for new measures to allow them to be removed as members, and the inquiry effectively offers an amnesty, which it calls a “moratorium,” to those who have used anti-Semitic language in the past.

The report is vague and indecisive on action against members who indulge in anti-Semitic anti-Zionism, and dismisses a culture of systematic demonization of Israel as a “series of unhappy incidents.”

If you portray the existence of Israel as a crime and indulge dangerous fantasies about the country no longer existing, that is anti-Semitic and deeply offensive. There is a constructive debate in the UK about how to reach a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, . . . of which we are part, and this is not it.

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.