JEWISH Chronicle associate editor Marcus Dysch described today’s gang-up on Jeremy Corbyn, when the JC, Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph ran the same front page story, as “the single most astonishing front page we’ve run.”

It was, but not in a good way, since there cannot surely be a previous instance of a democratic anti-racist politician being smeared in such a calculated way as posing an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country.”

Words have meaning and consequences, as history teaches us.

“Existential threat” carries a connotation of eradication of Britain’s Jewish population, which is so wild an allegation as to fly off the graph of political debate.

Similarly hysterical “traitor” charges levelled against former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by Benjamin Netanyahu’s political forebears resulted in his assassination and, worse, a chorus of backing for Rabin’s assassin.

Alleging that Corbyn is embarked on a project that threatens Jewish existence in Britain is a sinister development.

The titles claim that “the stain and shame of anti-semitism has coursed through Her Majesty’s Opposition since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015,” which is a downright lie.

Anti-semitism exists in the Labour Party, as it does throughout British society, but to suggest that it is virulent, directed by the leadership or more prevalent than in other parties is wrong.

The joint editorial confirms that the main target for these three papers is Corbyn’s longstanding support for Palestinian national rights denied by military occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and nation-state legislation in Israel.

It says: “Labour makes a distinction between racial anti-semitism targeting Jews (unacceptable) and political anti-semitism targeting Israel (acceptable),” which is a grotesque misrepresentation.

Unacceptable is targeting Jews as Jews and acceptable is criticising Israeli politicians’ actions.

Similar manipulation suggests that “dirty Jew” is wrong but “zionist bitch” is fair play, which is utterly fanciful.

Disciplinary action should befall any member using the term “zionist bitch” as surely as it should for calling someone who has spent their entire political life struggling against racism “a fucking anti-semite and racist.”

If the three papers and allied political currents were genuinely concerned with identifying, isolating and defeating anti-semitism in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, they would be building the broadest possible front.

Yet they choose to smear the biggest democratic, anti-racist party in Europe and remove Labour frontbencher Fabian Hamilton from his honorary patron position in the Campaign Against Anti-semitism.

Their stance has, unsurprisingly, been welcomed by the anti-Labour media from the Guardian to the Express and Murdoch titles, which places these titles and their allies firmly on the right of the political spectrum.

They are obsessed by the perceived needs of Israel’s territorial expansionist programme, which permits no criticism of the zionist project, and the Tory media are happy to jump on the anti-Corbyn bandwagon.

But not all British Jews get out of bed every morning wondering how Israel’s colonisation programme is proceeding and how best to assist it.

Most will be preoccupied by how to survive in Tory Britain after a decade of capitalist austerity that has frozen workers’ pay and benefits, eroded living standards, increased insecurity and priced increasing numbers of people out of the opportunity of putting a roof over their heads.

The three right-wing Jewish papers have lost their moral compass, putting a decent man in possible jeopardy because of their pro-zionist fixation. They and their political echoes should be ashamed of themselves.