Top NUJ official shared Shoah denial message
A MEMBER of the National Union of Journalists’ governing body, who resigned during a hearing over a tweet in which she said prominent Jewish politicians do not have “human blood”, has been condemned for sharing a tweet promoting Shoah denial.
Arjum Wajid was found to be in breach of her NUJ membership responsibilities when she tweeted the attack on Ruth Smeeth and Dame Louise Ellman, two Jewish Labour MPs, and Adam Langleben, a Jewish former Labour councillor in Barnet.
But it has since emerged she shared another tweet which accused Zionists of using a “fake event” to “manipulate the entire world into a conflict that devastates Europe”.
The message, which she retweeted on July 8, was originally sent in support of the suspended Labour MP Chris Williamson and accompanied with a picture of a cow and the word Zionism.
Under the picture,
Resigned: Wajid the Zionist movement is described as using a “faked a mass killing of your own kind”. It went on to say Zionists used the “faked event to guilt the major powers into giving your people an exclusive plot of land”.
An NUJ spokesperson said: “This was not material known or made available to the panel considering the complaint. The content of that tweet is shocking and vile in tone and content.
“There are no circumstances where it would be acceptable for an NUJ member — or any sentient person — to generate or retweet such disgraceful material that seeks to deny the Holocaust.”
Ms Wajid was approached for comment.
An NUJ panel “unanimously found that Ms Wajid was in breach of her membership responsibilities” over the original tweet, the union said.
“The NUJ does not regard prejudicial language or comments about people on the grounds of gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, age or disability as acceptable behaviour among its members,” it added. Ms Wajid was tweeting in response to Tony Greenstein, an anti-Zionist who was expelled from Labour last year.
She said: “Do you really believe the likes of Adam Langeleben, Ruth Smeeth and Louise Ellman have a conscience?
“Don’t know what runs through their veins, not human blood. Their hearts and brains totally devoid of humanity and eyes blind to truth. No creatures in Abraham’s universe.” The tweet was later deleted.
The panel raised “deep concerns” over “breaches of procedure and unacceptable behaviour during the process.”
The JC understands that the NUJ members who made the original complaint were subject to pressure to drop the complaint by members who supported Ms Wajid.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms Wajid started work as a journalist in 1980 and was at the BBC World Service from 1990 until her retirement in 2010.
Ms Wajid is a Labour member and is understood to be one of 50 alleged antisemitism cases that Tom Watson sent to Jeremy Corbyn in February demanding that action be taken.
Mr Langleben said: “Thankfully good anti-racist journalists no longer have to share a union with this individual. It is unsurprising, however, that she remains a member of the Labour Party.”
She wrote that a group of Jewish politicians do not have ‘human blood’