Who knew Jeremy Corbyn's antisemitic beetroot would cause such anger at the Daily Mail?

‘The Lord said unto Moses, ‘beware Pharaoh, for he shall seek vengeance upon thee. He shall grow a beard and nationalise the Red Sea so ye may not split it into separate bits, and grow a crop of beetroot within his allotment and verily wave it above his head, and ye will know him for he shall shout f***eth capitalism’’

It was outrageous for Corbyn to celebrate Passover with Jews who support Labour, rather than with Jews who can’t stand him (PA)

As if he wasn’t antisemitic enough, now he’s gone even further. It was revealed that Jeremy Corbyn dislikes Jews so much he spent Passover with a group that’s critical of Israel, and the only concession the group made to Jews is that they’re Jewish, and they broke bread and said a prayer to Elijah’s cup, recited to pour scorn upon enemies of the Jews, and pledged to continue campaigning against antisemitism but apart from that they obviously hate Jews.

If this is the way to tell whether someone’s antisemitic, the problem is worse than we realised. Every week thousands of antisemites perform antisemitic activities, such as observing the Jewish Sabbath and attending Bar Mitzvahs, and it’s time we stopped tolerating this, by shouting into synagogues “stop offending Jews, you racists”.

Labour MP John Woodcock said Corbyn’s presence at the Seder was “deliberately baiting the mainstream Jewish community”. And you can see what he means, because it was outrageous for Corbyn to celebrate Passover with Jews who support Labour, rather than with Jews who can’t stand him.

It’s the same with Christians. I’m sure every year, John Woodcock spends Christmas Day with people who detest him, because if he had dinner with any of his friends that would deliberately bait the mainstream Christian community.

Corbyn’s other explanation for not meeting with the “mainstream” Board of Deputies of British Jews, was he’d offered to meet them and they refused. What a feeble excuse. He should have turned up anyway and bashed their door in, shouting “budge up, I’ve brought some cheesecake”, but no, because he’s too antisemitic.

But the event Corbyn attended got even worse, according to revelations in the Daily Mail’s three-page Corbyn Passover special pullout section. Because (and it’s possible this is the most magnificent sentence ever written in the history of newspapers) “Extraordinary details emerged of the event, at which attendees shouted ‘f**k capitalism’ as a plate of beetroot from Mr Corbyn’s allotment was raised in the air.”

What a way to bait a mainstream community. This was clearly a reference to the passage in the Torah that teaches, “The Lord said unto Moses ‘beware Pharaoh, for he shall seek vengeance upon thee. He shall grow a beard and nationalise the Red Sea so ye may not split it into separate bits, and grow a crop of beetroot within his allotment and verily wave it above his head, and ye will know him for he shall shout f***eth capitalism’.”

The consoling aspect of this story is at least we know no Conservatives would insult a community like this. When Tory MP Aidan Burley was found to have helped organise a party at which guests dressed as Nazis and chanted Nazi slogans, he announced he was stepping down as MP a mere three years later, only half the time it took to defeat the actual Hitler. Because unlike Corbyn, the Tories are decisive on this issue.

Boris Johnson, while he was editor of The Spectator in 2000, published an article stating black people had smaller IQs than white people. The Daily Mail haven’t published anything about this yet, which must be because they’re compiling a special pullout section so huge they still haven’t found enough paper.

Zac Goldsmith referred to Sadiq Khan as a “friend of terrorism”, which showed Zac’s sporting nature, willing to promote the friendly amiable side of his political opponent.

This week, a Tory councillor who shared an article about “Muslim parasites”, was asked to explain himself, and said “It was about uncontrolled immigration in France”. And it’s touching in a way, that he seems to have thought the problem with that phrase is it didn’t make it clear why and in which country Muslims are parasites.

If you were cynical you might wonder whether some people are using this issue as a way to attack Corbyn. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a genuine problem, of the left ignoring antisemitism.

This suggests the situation requires a little nuance, and luckily much of this debate took place on Twitter and Facebook, which is known for encouraging even-handed arguments in which everyone listens thoughtfully.

So the sort of balanced replies from some Labour supporters, to examples of antisemitism within their party, were “How DARE you raise the issue of just ONE councillor denying the holocaust when you DON’T EVEN MENTION the cuts to the BUS SERVICE in STOCKPORT which is the REAL ISSUE!!!!”

The mural that initiated the controversy obviously portrays Jews as grasping old men amassing money while controlling the world, so maybe the people who don’t see that as anti-Semitic thought, “I just adored the delightful pastille shades of the hooked noses and crooked fingers, and the delicate brush strokes of the money the Jews are drooling over.”

Some people who declare themselves supporters of Corbyn still insist there’s no issue of antisemitism on the left, and it’s all a “Tory smear”, although Corbyn himself, along with John McDonnell and Momentum accept there is a problem.

Presumably their argument is, “Now Corbyn is joining in with the anti-Corbyn witch-hunt, which shows we can’t trust Corbyn because he attacks Corbyn, proving Corbyn is an anti-Corbyn arse!”

Parts of the left promoted the jazz musician Gilad Atzmon, who stated we should “take seriously” the idea that “Jews are trying to take over the world”. To be fair to him, constructing an argument that the race trying to take over the world is the one that came nearest to being systematically wiped out, is setting yourself quite a task, especially if you try to do it as a solo on the saxophone.

So we should be thankful for calm responses on all sides, and insist everyone is entirely right or wrong, and anyone who raises beetroot over shoulder height is banned from everything.