UK: Labor Suspends Ken Livingstone in Zionism Row
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Britain's opposition Labor Party has suspended Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, after he argued that Adolf Hitler was a supporter of Zionism.
Amid an escalating row over alleged anti-Semitic rhetoric among its members, the Labor Party said on Thursday that it had suspended Livingstone "pending an investigation, for bringing the party into disrepute".
Livingstone had defended Labor member of parliament Naz Shah, who was suspended on Wednesday for sharing allegedly anti-Semitic posts on social media.
Livingstone made controversial comments about Israel, and made an obscure reference to Adolf Hitler "supporting Zionism before he went mad," Al Jazeera reported.
"When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."
Naz Shah, was suspended on Wednesday after she was caught having shared a graphic with a map of Israel superimposed on a map of the US, bearing the caption "Solution for Israeli-Palestine conflict: Relocate Israel into United States." She added the comment "Problem solved."
She was also found to have used the hashtag #IsraelApartheid above a quote saying "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal".
Labor member of parliament John Mann, who was later filmed chasing Livingstone and calling him a "Nazi apologist", was also reprimanded by party officials for his "completely inappropriate" public confrontation.
