CAA to write to Honours Forfeiture Committee and House of Lords Appointments Commission over Naz Shah’s “dear friend” Shaista Gohir OBE
Last week, the disgraced Labour Party MP, Naz Shah, congratulated her “dear friend” Shaista Gohir OBE on her appointment to the House of Lords as a non-party political peer.
Regrettably, Ms Gohir, the founding co-Chair of the Muslim Women’s Network, has her own history of inflammatory social media activity, which we can now reveal.
Judging by her tweets, Ms Gohir believes that Israel controls US foreign policy and American political decision-making. In one tweet, she wrote: “Who controls America’s foreign policy? ISRAEL – they would be the ONLY beneficiaries of a US attack on Syria.” Another tweet read: “Will Israel influence the US vote on whether to invade Syria? Are the AMericans really on control of their own decisions? #JustAsking.”
In fact, she appears to believe that Israel “controls” the US and even has such a “hold” over world leaders that it can “get away with murder”, having written in one tweet that “US warns Israel over Palestine talks failure. I bet Israel are quaking in their boots – NOT! Don’t they control US? http://bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26416958” and in another tweet that “The hold Israel has over world leaders including Muslim ones is extraordinary that they continue to murder Palestinians and get away with it.”
It is not just any sort of murder that the Jewish state purportedly “gets away with”, but genocide comparable to that committed by the Nazis. She wrote: “You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once-there has to be a limit (Edward W.Said) #israel.” According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.
Ms Gohir is a fan of the ‘right sort’ of Jews, including, it seems, those who ‘learned’ from their experience of the Holocaust. She wrote in one tweet that “It’s a shame that media does not highlight all those Jews who are against the Israeli aggression against Palestinians even in Israel” and in another tweet: “Holocaust survivors condemn Israel http://bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28916761.”
She finds it “Very worrying that increasingly anyone criticising Israeli govt is deliberately being accused of antisemitism to prevent debate.” This is an example of the antisemitic “Livingstone Formulation,” which holds that Jews level baseless allegations of antisemitism in order to silence criticism of Israel.
It is odd that she would utilise the Livingstone Formulation, however, given that she thought that Ken Livingstone should be suspended from the Labour Party, asking in a tweet: “Will #Corbyn take action against his best mate Ken Livingstone? #NazShah suspended despite apology but Ken not regretful & not suspended.”
It is possible, however, that that tweet was just intended to suggest that her friend Ms Shah had supposedly been unfairly treated. After all, in another tweet she wrote: “Instead of suspending @NazShahBfd the @UKLabour should do roots & branches review on #antiSemitism #sexism & homophobia in party.”
She has said some of the right things on antisemitism in the Labour Party, including a tweet with a cartoon showing Labour sweeping complaints regarding “sexism, homophobia [and] antisemitism” under the carpet.
But that could just be because, judging by various tweets, she did not like Jeremy Corbyn who, lest we forget, suspended her friend Ms Shah.
Campaign Against Antisemitism will be writing to the Honours Forfeiture Committee and House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.