Labour leadership contender Jess Phillips has suspended a Muslim aide for posting anti-Israel tweets.
The Birmingham MP took the decision on Friday after she found out that office manager Salma Hamid had described Israel as a “murderer,” compared Israel to ISIS, and said that Israel was “inflicting Holocaust conditions on Palestinians” in tweets stretching from 2014 to 2016.
The right-wing Daily Mail sent Phillips the tweets which also showed that Hamid had drawn a distinction between the Jewish faith “based on love” and “Zionists.”
Phillips is pro Israel and has been fiercely critical of Jeremy Corbyn over alleged antisemitism within Labour. She has put tackling antisemitism in the party at the heart of her bid to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.
In a series of posts between 2014 and 2016 before she was employed by the MP, Mrs Hamid lambasted Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and praised Hamas.
In one message in 2015 addressed directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she appeared to equate Israel with ISIS, writing: “Because Israel obeys human rights/law? Hilarious! Isis are terrible too. So really there is no difference.”
In another Twitter exchange, Mrs Hamid wrote: “We must show the world that Israel is the murderer!’ She also claimed that “Israel IS inflicting Holocaust conditions on Palestinians! Oppressive, racist and violent!”
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A spokesman for the MP said: “As soon as Jess was made aware of these comments, she acted. Her office manager has been suspended with immediate effect.”
Her office said Mrs Hamid did not wish to comment.
