Earlier this month, UK’s Labour party suspended its senior Afro-Jewish activist Jackie Walker as result of allegations of ‘antisemitism’ from London-basedIsrael Advocacy Movement. Ms Walker is a supporter of party’s new leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Walker wrote on her Facebook page (read below) in February that as a person of mixed heritage, her (Jewish) ancestors were involved in both theNazi Holocaust and the slave trade. “Millions more Africans were killed in the African Holocaust,” she wrote, apparently equating the African slave trade with the Nazi Holocaust, the trade-mark reserved only for the sufferings of the Jews.
After internal investigation of the charges, Jackie Walker, was readmitted to the party this week. Walker is also affiliated with Jews For Justice For Palestinians.
“I am not a racist, but I robustly defend my right and the right of others to speak openly and frankly about matters of grave political and historical importance,” Walker told BBC.
News of Ms Walker’s reinstatement was condemned by the pro-Israel Campaign Against Antisemitism watchdog. Its director of communication Jonathan Sacerdoti, said the annoucement called in to question the party’s inquiry into antisemitism.
Ms Walker’s suspension came on the same day as that of councillors and former Mayor of Newport, Iraqi-born professor Miqdad Al-Nuaimi and Scottish Terry Kelly and just days after three others were suspended.
All six followed those of MP Naz Shah and former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who claimed in a radio interview that Adolf Hitler supported Zionism and European Jewish immigration to Palestine.
London’s new Mayor, Pakistan-born Sadiq Khan, former MP from Labour party while paying his respect to the ‘Six Million Died’ on very first day in office, assured UK’s Organized Jewry that fighting hatred towards 325,000 British Jews will be his No.1 priority.
Walker’s partner Graham Bash wrote on May 5:”As a Jew (all my life) and Labour Party member (48 years) I am outraged at the way allegations of anti-Semitism have been used to silence legitimate criticism of Israel and undermine Jeremy Corbyn as my party’s leader. I know what anti-Semitism is. I was brought up to learn how the Jewish East End fought with the dockers against Mosley’s fascists at Cable Street. I was told at school how it was a pity that Hitler didn’t finish off the job of murdering all Jews. And very quickly I learned what it was like to be made to feel an outsider. It was hardly surprising that I started going on anti-fascist demos in my late teens and very soon afterwards joined the Labour Party, which I remain a member of to this day.”
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