Leader Jeremy Corbyn on stage at the Labour Party Conference | Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images Jeremy Corbyn: It’s ‘offensive’ to call me anti-Semitic ‘I’ve spent my whole life exposing racism in any form,’ says the Labour leader.

U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn rejected a comparison between himself and the late right-wing Tory MP Enoch Powell as "hurtful," "quite offensive" and "beyond excessive."

Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr program on Sunday, Corbyn was commenting on an interview that Marr did last month with former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. In that interview, Sacks had said that because of his utterances on Zionism and failure to deal with anti-Semitism in the party, the Labour leader was "as great a danger" as Powell — a politician whose "rivers of blood" speech in 1968 is notorious for whipping up racial hatred in Britain at the time.

Corbyn strongly denied that he was an anti-Semite. "No absolutely not. I’ve spent my whole life exposing racism in any form," he said. "I do find [Sacks' comments] actually quite hurtful and quite offensive ... I say to rabbi Sacks, with all due respect, that is beyond excessive."

But the Labour leader looked deeply uncomfortable at times during the 25-minute interview, in which Marr put a series of allegedly anti-Semitic incidents to him that have come to light in recent months. His party's strategy of using the summer months to showcase a range of economic and industrial policies while using the government's difficulties in the Brexit talks to get on the front foot were de-railed by a series of allegations that the party has failed to deal with racism toward Jews within its ranks.

In one incident, Corbyn was addressing a conference in 2013 organized by the Palestinian Return Centre. During his speech he said: “[British Zionists] clearly have two problems: One is they don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.”

This was widely interpreted as a coded anti-Semitic statement. But Corbyn strongly denied that. "It was not intended to be anti-Semitic in any way," he said Sunday.

The Labour leader said he was standing up for a prior speaker, Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian diplomatic representative in the U.K. Two members of the audience had been "really strong on him" during an exchange afterward and Hassassian had made "ironic remarks" toward them, Corbyn said.

"[He] fully understands English humor and irony and the use of language. They were clearly English-born, British-born," said Corbyn.

"They were very, very abusive to Manuel. Very abusive. And I was very upset on his behalf. I felt I should say something in his support," he added.

Marr asked why Corbyn had objected, in a separate incident, to a mural depicting anti-Semitic tropes being removed from a wall in East London. "I was worried about the idea of murals being taken down," said Corbyn. "Actually, the mural was taken down. I was perhaps too hasty in my judgment on that."

At a meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee earlier this month at which an internationally recognized definition of anti-Semitism was adopted by the party, Corbyn had proposed that the meeting also endorse a statement clarifying what constitutes acceptable criticism of Israel. It said: “It cannot be considered racist to treat Israel like any other state or assess its conduct against the standards of international law. Nor should it be regarded as antisemitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact.” This was not ultimately adopted by the NEC.

Asked if it was Corbyn’s view that the establishment of the state of Israel was a racist endeavor, Corbyn said "no." But he added: "I think it is right that people should be able to discuss the establishment of the state of Israel, but recognize the existence of the state of Israel and not prevent that kind of debate."