British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, often criticized for supporting and enabling anti-Semitism, acknowledged Monday that he attended a wreath-laying ceremony for the Palestinian terrorists who murdered 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
But "I don't think I was actually involved" in laying the wreath, he said.
The left-wing politician and longtime Israel critic has been facing mounting criticism since the Daily Mail last week published photos of him holding a wreath near the graves of Black September members in a Tunis cemetery in 2014. The Palestinian terrorist group carried out the kidnapping and massacre of the Israeli athletes. Several members were later assassinated by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.
Corbyn had previously said he was at the cemetery to commemorate the victims of a 1985 Israeli airstrike on Palestine Liberation Organization offices in Tunis.
On Monday, he acknowledged a wreath had also been laid in honor of "those that were killed in Paris in 1992." PLO official Atef Bseiso, whom Israel has accused of helping to plan the Munich attack, was gunned down outside a Paris hotel that year.
"I was present when it [the wreath] was laid. I don't think I was actually involved in it," Corbyn told reporters. "I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who has died in every terrorist incident everywhere, because we have to end it."
The statement is unlikely to quell criticism from Jewish groups and Labour Party members who say Corbyn has allowed anti-Semitism to spread in the party.
"Being 'present' is the same as being involved. When I attend a memorial, my presence alone, whether I lay a wreath or not, demonstrates my association and support. There can also never be a 'fitting memorial' for terrorists. Where is the apology?" tweeted Jewish Labour Movement Chairwoman and MP Luciana Berger.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unimpressed with Corbyn's explanation, tweeted, "The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone: Left, Right and everything in between."
Corbyn responded on Twitter that Netanyahu's "claims about my actions and words are false. What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children."
Corbyn has been accused of failing to expel party members who express anti-Semitic views and has been criticized for past statements, including a 2010 speech in which he compared Israel's blockade of Gaza to Nazi Germany's sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad during World War II.
The dispute recently boiled over after the party proposed adopting a definition of anti-Semitism different from the one approved by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Labour's version omits some of the alliance's language around criticism of Israel. The alliance says it is anti-Semitic to compare contemporary Israeli policies to the policies of the Nazis, a view Labour did not endorse.
Labour's poll standing appears to have been damaged by the anti-Semitism row.
A YouGov poll last week found that 39% of those questioned would vote for the Conservatives, a gain of one point for Prime Minister Theresa May's party from the previous week, when the two biggest parties were level. Labour dropped three points to 35%.
