Why did Corbyn visit Palestine when it was mourning the co-founder of Hamas?

Jeremy Corbyn is a man of peace with an unfortunate tendency to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong wreath – when it comes to anti-Semitism. Just last week it emerged that the Labour leader once claimed that Israel’s Prime Minister and other leading politicians compete to see ‘who can kill the most’ people in Palestine.

Only Corbyn seems to be more relaxed about leaders who talk up killing Israelis and Americans. In the spring of 2004, the Labour leader – then a lowly backbencher – visited Palestine. It was a rather curious time for a visit given that after a series of assassinations of Hamas leaders, the mood was particularly febrile and Western visitors were thin on the ground.

The month before his visit, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, was killed by a targeted Israeli air-strike. In response, his successor as Hamas leader – Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi – vowed full-scale revenge encouraging Muslims worldwide to attack all Israelis and Americans that support Israel.