News / Politics

Suspended Labour councilor defends comparing Israel to Hitler

Tuesday, 03 May 2016 3:19 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 03 May 2016 4:25 PM ]

(L to R) UK Labour councilors Shah Hussain, Salim Mulla and Ilyas Aziz have all been suspended over social media posts about Israel.

A UK Labour councilor, suspended over a tweet comparing the Israeli government to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, says he has been targeted because he is a Muslim.

Burnley councilor Shah Hussain told the BBC’s Daily Politics program on Tuesday that there had been a “witch hunt” against him.

“What I was merely stating is that, what the state of Israel is doing within Gaza can be made comparable to what happened to the European Jews in World War Two,” he said.

The Labour Party suspended three councilors Monday over social media posts about Israel.

Salim Mulla from Blackburn and Ilyas Aziz from Nottingham were the two other councilors who were suspended pending investigations following allegations of “anti-Semitism.”

The pair had suggested that Israel should be relocated to the United States, echoing similar comments posted by Naz Shah, a Labour MP who was suspended last week by the party.

Hussain reportedly intervened in a Twitter spat in 2014 between English and Israeli footballers Joey Barton and Yossi Benayoun over the Israel’s war on Gaza.

In a message directed at Benayoun, he wrote: “You are an (sic) complete and utter plonker, you and your country doing the same thing that hitler did to ur race in ww2".

Hussain defended his comments and vowed to fight the suspension.

“If Jewish people find it offensive then I think they need to think about what the rest of the world thinks,” he told the Press Association.

The Labour Party has come under pressure for recent anti-Israeli remarks made by a number of its politicians.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingston was suspended last week after he defended Naz Shah in an interview with BBC and criticized the British media for ignoring Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people. Livingston also said that Hitler had been a Zionist early in his political career.

The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday that Labour had suspended as many as 50 people in the past two months. The party said the figure is a “wild overestimate.”

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has been criticized for failing to take a firm stance on anti-Israeli sentiment within the party. Last week, Corbyn ordered an inquiry into the issue and said he would propose a new code of conduct banning any forms of racism in the party.

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