Labour officer: ‘Jews took Israel by series of genocides’

A LABOUR party officer told a Jewish woman during a debate about Palestine that it was a “fact” that the “Jews took over the area by a series of genocides”.

The Labour Party is being urged to investigate the comments made by Penny Vera-sanso, chairwoman of the Victoria ward Constituency Labour Party in Hackney, to Joanna De Guia in a community group chat on Facebook.

Ms De Guia said the comments were indicative of a Labour Party in which many members were still in “denial” about the scale of the problem.

The exchange was sparked by a posting that said before Israel there was “a British mandate, not a Palestinian state” and before that “there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state”.

Dr Vera-sanso, Director of Social Anthropology at Birkbeck University, dismissed this as an “appalling argument” and “playing games”.

Librarian Ms De Guia, responded: “It’s fact. It’s very far from game playing.”

However Dr Vera-sanso argued: “Picking and choosing btwn (sic) antecedents is game playing. Some consider the fact to be that Jews took over the area by a series of genocides.”

She went on to share an article with Ms De Guia which promoted the argument that “the Jews occupied the land having been told to exterminate the Canaanites”.

The reported comments have no place in the Labour Party’

“Here’s an article that gives a sense of the debate,” she added.

Ms De Guia, who ran a children’s bookshop in Hackney, told the JC: “I am a convert to the importance of diversity of opinion because when politics becomes this binary, we really suffer. There is a lack of humility and no real attempt to understand the complexities of these issues.”

Euan Philipps, spokesman for Labour Against Antisemitism, said: “The reported comments by Dr Penny Vera-sanso are antisemitic and should have no place in the Labour Party. We will be forwarding all the evidence of her comments to Labour HQ and we hope they will take swift disciplinary action.” The Labour party is understood to be investigating the exchange.

In a separate online debate five years earlier, Dr Vera-Sanso again lectured Ms De Guia about history.

The debate followed the suspension of former London Mayor Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party over his claims that Hitler supported Zionism.

Dr Vera-sanso shared an article that Livingtone had been “vindicated” in his claims of a link between Zionism and the Nazis.

“Worth reading the full wiki entry” she added.

The JC has contacted Dr Vera-sanso for comment.