Corbyn candidate wished Tony Blair and Israeli PM dead
A LABOUR candidate said she would ‘celebrate’ the deaths of Tony Blair and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
Zarah Sultana, who is standing for Coventry South, also wrote of her support for ‘violent resistance’ by Palestinians and used the hash tag ‘extremist muslim’ online. Despite Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis, the 26-year-old will still stand in the election on December 12.
In one of the posts, Miss Sultana, a paid member of staff for Labour, took issue with the suggestion that it was wrong to ‘celebrate the death of any person regardless of what they did’. The former Birmingham University student wrote in 2015: ‘Try and stop me when the likes of Blair, Netanyahu and Bush die.’
In posts uncovered by the Jewish Chronicle, she added: ‘The sooner they meet their creator the better. The concepts of justice and accountability don’t truly exist in this life. Only in the next.’
Miss Sultana, who supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel, also changed a post she had made about the Palestinian right to ‘non-violent resistance’. She wrote: ‘Best believe that was an error and I meant to write “violent resistance”.’ She added the tag ‘#signsofanextremistMuslim’.
Last night she apologised for her online posts and claimed they had been written out of frustration. She said: ‘Today I was shown tweets from a deleted account dating back several years from when I was a student.
‘This was written out of frustration rather than any malice. I was a young activist exasperated by endless cycles of global suffering, violence and needless killing resulting from decisions by political leaders, from the Iraq war to the killing of over 2,000 Palestinians in 2014, mostly civilians, which was condemned by the United Nations.
‘I do not support violence and I should not have articulated my anger in the manner I did, for which I apologise.’
Michael Foster, a former Labour MP and international development minister, said: ‘The use of language like this has no place in politics. When we trash UK Labour governments we are doomed to lose. When we celebrate the death of a former leader, we have no moral compass or right to stand on a Labour platform.’
In tweets to Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary, and Rory Shannon, the party’s West Midlands regional board representative, Mr Foster added: ‘What action do you plan taking against this selected candidate and employee? We simply cannot accept such sentiments as a mainstream political party.’
Labour member Damian Gannon said: ‘I, and I hope every other Labour Party member in Coventry, am fuming about these revelations. This is so serious, we are so much better than this.’
He added: ‘She should stand down. Coventry is the city of peace and reconciliation we can’t have candidates calling for violent resistance and saying she would celebrate the deaths of world leaders.’
Miss Sultana, who sat on the national executive of Young Labour and the national executive council of the National Union of Students, was also criticised for attacking a Jewish student who attempted to stand as a black and minority ethnic student leader, branding them ‘white’.
In the March 2015 post, the Unite union representative wrote: ‘Everyone sees how problematic it is for white people to run for positions representing BME students. Except white people.’
She added: ‘Those within the student movement who go to Zionist conferences and trips should be ashamed of themselves. You’re advocating racist ideology.’
Miss Sultana is an international relations and economics graduate who is also parliamentary officer for Muslim Engagement and Development, a campaign group which is accused of promoting extremism.
Labour is being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for alleged institutional anti-Semitism. Two female Jewish Labour MPs have left the party over the issue.