Teaching union ex-official took aim at ‘dirty Zionists’
A FORMER officer at Britain’s largest education union is under investigation after being accused by anti-Semitism campaigners of sharing “offensive” and “inflammatory” comments online.
Latifa Abouchakra, a former “International Solidarity Officer” for the National Education Union, is being investigated by the NEU as a “matter of urgency” after social media posts revealed by The Sunday Telegraph showed she had used the term “dirty Zionists”.
Ms Abouchakra urged her followers last Sunday to support two Leicester City football players who displayed a Palestinian flag at the FA cup final, writing: “Apparently the dirty zionists have been complaining to Leicester City FC re the players showing their support for Palestine…
“We need to send in msgs of support to show that the pro-Palestine feeling vastly outweighs the pro-Zionist one.”
The message was later edited to remove the word “dirty”, though can still be viewed publicly.
Ms Abouchakra, who works as a Citizenship teacher, has been criticised after her public social media accounts were found to contain offensive comments.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism told The Telegraph: “These inflammatory posts are not remotely appropriate for someone charged with the education of our children.” The antiracism group said they would be submitting a complaint to the Teaching Regulation Authority, and urged the NEU to take action against Ms Abouchakra “to demonstrate where they stand on anti-Jewish racism”.
It is understood Ms Abouchakra is a member of the NEU.
The organisation said that it was aware of the posts and that the matter “will be looked into according to the union’s internal processes relating to member conduct”.
A spokesperson for the NEU said: “The NEU deplores anti-Semitism and all forms of racism and treats these issues very seriously.”
Among the posts Ms Abouchakra was found to have shared were images of a Jewish effigy represented as the devil, and posts promoting conspiracy theories involving “Zionist elites” in America. The teacher also shared a post equating Zionism to “racism and genocide”.
Ms Abouchakra did not immediately respond to a request for comment.