Plaid Cymru suspends member Sahar Al-Faifi over historic antisemitic comments

The Welsh party, Plaid Cymru, has suspended a member who featured in the Party’s election broadcast over allegations of historic antisemitism.

Sahar Al-Faifi is reported to have made antisemitic comments on social media, which Plaid Cymru will now reportedly investigate during her suspension.

Ms Al-Faifi issued an apologetic statement, admitting that “Several years ago I made a handful of social media posts that I regret deeply as they crossed the boundary of criticism of Israel into antisemitism.” The rest of the statement read in part: “I deleted the tweets more than five years ago, and issued an apology to Jewish organisations and others. I have also undertaken antisemitism training, both formally through the Board of Deputies and informally with Jewish colleagues in order to ensure that I never repeat the same mistakes.”

However, the Board of Deputies distanced itself from Ms Al-Faifi, saying: “We met Sahar Al-Faifi to confront her over concerns we had over antisemitic social media postings. Ms Al-Faifi apologised to us and made some amendments to her social media output. However, we were clear that the situation still remained unsatisfactory,” clarifying that it had asked her to amend some other of her previous social media posts but that she did not appear to have done so.

The Board of Deputies said that several troubling posts remained, including one apparently appearing to promote the genocidal antisemitic terrorist group, Hamas, and another reportedly suggesting that the London Bridge attack in 2017 was linked to “pro-Zionists”.

A spokesperson for Plaid Cymru said: “We have taken immediate action to suspend the person in question. We will investigate all allegations. Plaid Cymru will not tolerate anti-Semitism, racism or intolerance in any form. That includes the appalling abuse the individual has been subject to. It is not a part of the Wales we want to build.”

On 8th December, regardless of religion, race or politics, Jews and non-Jews alike will gather in Parliament Square to declare that they stand together against antisemitism in the face of Jew-hatred in politics and mounting anti-Jewish hate crime.