British Labour Party Suspends Lawmaker for Anti-Semitic Facebook Posts
Image by Facebook
— Britain’s Labour Party suspended a local city councilman after a British political watchdog website produced Facebook posts in which he said that Israel should have been created in the United States and that it is not too late to move Israeli Jews there.
Ilyas Aziz, a city councilman for Nottingham in north-central England, was suspended on Monday, hours after the Guido Fawkes website posted screenshots of his Facebook posts, including the 2014 one calling for the relocation of Israeli Jews.
Other posts shown on Guido Fawkes included one comparing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi’s treatment of Jews and another perpetuating the blood libel myth that reads “Stop drinking Gaza’s blood.” Another post shows an Israeli flag with the words “God didn’t give you the land – the UK did … Illegally” superimposed on it.
The suspension comes days after Labour suspended British Member of Parliament Naz Shah for a 2014 Facebook post calling for relocating the entire State of Israel to the United States.
On Thursday, the party suspended former London Mayor Ken Livingstone for saying that Adolf Hitler was a Zionist for advocating in 1932 a policy of moving Europe’s Jews to Israel.
The following day, the party said it would launch an investigation into anti-Semitism in the party. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn also said in a statement that he would propose a new party code of conduct, which would “make explicitly clear for the first time that Labour will not tolerate any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, in the party.”
The latest suspension comes days before local elections, including for mayor of London, in a race that Labour’s candidate, Sadiq Kahn, is favored to win, which would make him the first Muslim mayor of a major Western city. He is running against Conservative Party candidate Zac Goldsmith.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Fast Forward Jewish Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky reportedly to retire after 26 years in office
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.