Board of Deputies of British Jews Vice President Amanda Bowman has urged political parties to take action against news MPs who have been found to have made anti-Jewish comments.
Amanda said: “We view with great concern the past conduct of a number of newly elected members of the House of Commons:
“Apsana Begum (Labour, Poplar & Limehouse)) shared a Facebook post which said, with respect to Muslims being harassed at the Mecca Grand Mosque, that the ‘House of Saud are crossing the red line, inspired by their Zionist masters!’
“Lee Anderson (Conservative, Ashfield) is an active member of a Facebook group moderated by local Conservative activists which has regularly posted conspiracy theories about George Soros.
“Neale Hanvey (currently suspended from the SNP), the newly elected member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, circulated an article that depicted George Soros as a puppeteer controlling world leaders and posted a message drawing parallels between the treatment of Palestinians and Jews in World War Two.
“Sally Ann Hart (Conservative, Hastings & Rye) posted a link to a YouTube video about the EU which used George Soros’s image, and then liked a comment beneath it which read “Ein Reich”, a Nazi slogan.
“Zarah Sultana (Labour, Coventry South) has made numerous offensive comments in connection to Israel and Jews, and told an outgoing non-Jewish Vice-President of the NUS who had been against BDS motions that he did not ‘serve Israel as well as you would’ve liked’.
“We would ask all the political parties in question to treat these cases with the utmost seriousness, and use the full range of disciplinary measures as appropriate, from training on antisemitism and the pernicious use of antisemitic tropes up to and including suspension of the whip (as has already been done in the case of Mr Hanvey).”
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