JEREMY Corbyn has tried, again, to defuse the anti-Semitism row that has engulfed the Labour Party. In a video message released yesterday afternoon he said: “I’m sorry for the hurt that has been caused to many Jewish people.”

But that came as one officer in Labour’s constituency party in East Renfrewshire, home to Scotland’s biggest Jewish community, was accused of sharing a cartoon using Nazi-like caricatures of Jewish people to criticise the government of Israel.

Dr Karen Bett shared the image in support of Ahed Tamimi, the 16-year-old Palestinian girl sentenced to eight months in jail for slapping an Israeli soldier who was trying to get into her house in the village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank.

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Bett said she hadn’t noticed before posting it that the comic portrays Israel as a man with an exaggerated hook nose, and beard.

In a Twitter conversation, Bett said: “I did briefly have that up on my [Facebook] and it then sends to my Twitter.

“I had a discussion with a friend and I felt that although the sentiment of Ahed being freed was a good one, the representation of Israel was inappropriate when looked at closely and I therefore removed it. I am sorry if I offended anyone. I have to say no-one commented their concern.”

Ben Proctor, the chair of the local party took to Twitter to say “the post and the officer in question were reported to the UK and Scottish parties and their respective general secretaries when it was published days ago”.

He added: “The contents are clearly racist and have should have no place in the Labour Party.”

Bett hit back at Proctor, asking why it had been reported without her being told first. She said: “It is good to know that in my [constituency Labour party] there is open discussion and debate. That members are treated with respect and compassion ncerns [sic] are aired with them.”

Bett, a psychiatrist, achieved notoriety about a decade ago when clinics she operated in Airdrie, Clydebank, Hamilton, Lanark and Motherwell were the subject of a BBC Scotland news investigation.

Bett was found to be selling her patients the diet pill Phentermine on demand for £10. In one three-month spell, she was thought to have supplied more of the drug per day than all of Glasgow GPs put together.

Corbyn’s comments came after deputy leader Tom Watson said Labour faces being lost in a “vortex of eternal shame” unless it addresses the concerns of the Jewish community. In his video, Corbyn warned: “People who use anti-Semitic poison need to understand: you do not do it in my name, or the name of my party. You are not our supporters.”

He added: “Driving anti-Semitism out of the party for good and working with the Jewish community to rebuild trust are vital priorities.

“I am sorry for the hurt that has been caused to many Jewish people. We have been too slow in processing disciplinary cases of, mostly, online anti-Semitic abuse by party members. We are acting to speed this process up.

“People who hold anti-Semitic views have no place in the Labour Party. They may be few – the number of cases over the past three years represents less than 0.1% of Labour’s membership of more than half-a-million – but one is too many.

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“Our party must never be a home for such people and never will be. Anyone who denies this has surfaced within our party is clearly actually wrong and contributing to the problem. I acknowledge there is a real problem of anti-Semitism that Labour is working to overcome. That’s why anti-racism is at the very core of our movement.”

Gideon Falter, the chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism was not convinced. He said: “Jeremy Corbyn has released yet another bland statement devoid of any apology for his own anti-Semitism or promises of specific actions.”