WATCH: Seumas Milne suggested complicity between Isis and Israel
Milne also suggested foreign correspondents interview Isis as part of their coverage
Jeremy Corbyn’s strategy and communications director Seumas Milne has hinted at a possible link between Jihadist groups and Israel.
In a video discovered by investigative reporter Iggy Ostanin, the Corbyn aide expressed his views on the Middle East at a Stop the War Coalition conference in June 2015.
The event, titled Stop the War Coalition: Imperialism, ISIS and the Middle East, was also attended by Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway and Andrew Murray.
“One of my friends from Egypt raised the situation about the Isis franchise and its relationship to Israel. I think that’s a very interesting phenomenon myself,” he told the audience.
“At the moment we have, on the effective Israeli border, you know, the ceasefire zone in the Golan heights, one of the most sectarian Jihadist groups, the Al Qaeda franchise, Jabhat Al-Nusra, which is actually on the border with the Israeli troops.
“Nothing happens, it’s interesting, the Israelis don’t seem too bothered about it. So I think that the role these groups are playing in the region is sometimes illuminated by that kind of fact, who their real enemies are.”
EXCL: Watch Seumas Milne suggest collusion between Israel and ISIS. At June 2015 event Milne responded to a question on “the ISIS franchise and its relationship to Israel”. He begins by saying “I think that’s a very interesting phenomenon myself” pic.twitter.com/KSsE9mStiX
— Iggy Ostanin (@magnitsky) April 26, 2019
Earlier, he suggested foreign correspondents also interview Isis as part of their coverage of the Middle East.
“It seems to me that the mainstream media coverage of the Middle East and the wars in the Middle East and the interventions in the Middle East has been generally very poor,” he said.
“If correspondents are able to get access to any group, including ISIS, though dangerous that is, I think that should be done.
“We need more information from the region from every single party of the highest quality.“
Following the release of the video, Labour MP Wes Streeting tweeted: “Crackpot conspiracy theorists who peddle rubbish about links between Israel and ISIS are best confined to the internet.
“They have no place in parties that aspire to govern. End of.”
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