A British Member of Parliament (MP) who suggested that Israel should be relocated to the United States as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been suspended by the United Kingdom’s Labour Party.
Labour MP Naz Shah had already quit her role in the U.K.’s “shadow cabinet” (the parliamentary opposition’s alternative cabinet to that of the ruling coalition government) over the controversy. She “unreservedly” apologized for a 2014 Facebook post that included an image of the country of Israel superimposed on a U.S. map, with the comment “solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict.” The Guido Fawkes political website was the first outlet to report on the post.
“Problem solved and save u bank charges for £3 BILLION you transfer yearly!” Shah wrote in the Facebook post.
The post gives a list of reasons for why Israel’s “relocation” plan would be beneficial, such as Palestinians getting “their land and life back.”
“This post from two years ago was made before I was an MP. [It] does not reflect my views and I apologize for any offense it has caused,” Shah said in a statement. “I made these posts at the height of the Gaza conflict in 2014, when emotions were running high around the Middle East conflict. But that is no excuse for the offense I have given.”
Additionally, London’s Jewish Chronicle on Tuesday cited anti-Semitic posts Shah made on Twitter in 2014, alluding that Jews rule the government. Shah is a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, which is currently investigating the rise of anti-Semitism in the U.K.
Shah is not alone in her controversial remarks. The Guido Fawkes website also reported that Shah’s parliamentary aide, Mohammad Shabbir, has used an offensive term for Zionist, “Zio,” on Twitter. He has also posted that Orthodox Jews “are involved in the sex trafficking trade,” has compared Zionists to the Al-Qaeda terror group, has called Israel “a ‘terror’ and ‘apartheid’ state,” and has equated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Holocaust.
Shabbir was suspended from the Labour Party in the wake of these revelations, prior to the suspension of Shah.
“[Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn and Naz Shah have mutually agreed that she is administratively suspended from the Labour Party by the general secretary,” a Labour statement said, according to the BBC.
“Pending investigation, she is unable to take part in any party activity and the whip is removed,” the statement added.
Corbyn himself is no stranger to accusations of harboring anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments—he once described the Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups as “friends”—placing his Labour Party under continuous scrutiny in Jewish and pro-Israel circles within the U.K.
JNS.ORG
{Matzav.com}
