British Jew Quits Race After Suggesting Israel ‘Do Eichmann’ on President Obama

Jeremy Zeid
A Jewish candidate for the British Parliament has withdrawn after suggesting that Israel should “do an Eichmann” on Barack Obama.

Jeremy Zeid
Jeremy Zeid of the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, quit his campaign on Thursday in response to the blowback to a Facebook post in which he suggested that Israel should “[k]idnap the bugger” and “lock him up for leaking state secrets,” according to the Jewish Chronicle. Zeid was outraged over the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran.
Zeid, a decorator, was running in a northwest London district with the second-highest number of Jewish voters of any constituency in Britain, at approximately 17 percent, according to the Chronicle. He denied that the UKIP, a right-wing party defined by its anti-immigrant positions, had pressured him to resign.
Zeid was replaced on the ballot by Dr. Raymond Shamash, a dentist who served as a medical officer in the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Shamash, in turn, told the Jewish Chronicle that he is “fearful” of Muslims, though he denied being Islamophobic.
“There are 2.8 million people [in the United Kingdom] who are ideologically and religiously opposed to us,” he told the Chronicle, referring to the U.K.’s Muslim population. “I am fearful of a minority that sees us Jews as a potential target for attack.”
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.
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.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
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.