Kate Osamor, Labour MP for Edmonton, has been suspended from her party after sparking criticism for labelling Gaza a genocide in a message about Holocaust Memorial Day. She has issued an apology for any offence caused in the message sent to local party members on Friday. Holocaust Memorial Day honours the six million Jews and other groups who were killed during the Holocaust, along with those who lost their lives during more recent genocides such as in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and now Gaza. Osamor, who previously served as shadow international development secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, shared a photograph of herself at a Holocaust Educational Trust event and wrote that the day was for remembering “the millions of other people murdered under Nazi persecution of other groups and more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and now Gaza”.
Osamor’s comment caused anger among several prominent Jewish organisations, with the Holocaust Educational Trust calling her remarks a “painful insult to survivors of the Holocaust”. Meanwhile, the Board of Deputies of British Jews deemed them “disgraceful” and the Jewish Leadership Council accused Osamor of abusing Holocaust Memorial Day to attack the Jewish state. Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds also spoke out against Osamor’s comments, stating that they were unacceptable and that it was not correct to compare the Holocaust to Gaza’s situation. While recognising that what is happening in Gaza can be viewed as a humanitarian disaster, Reynolds stressed that there are specific reasons why the Holocaust commands an exceptional place in history.
Momentum, which is a political pressure group linked to Labour, decried Osamor’s suspension as an “outrageous decision” after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined that Israel should take all possible preventive measures against genocidal acts in Gaza. The court did not, however, directly ask the country to stop the war. The verdict regarding the central allegation of genocide is expected to arrive much later.
Tahir Ali, a Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green, also apologised last week for commenting on the war in Gaza during Prime Minister’s Questions. He accused Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of having “the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands” due to his response to the incident. The spokesman of Ali’s party described his remark as “clearly inappropriate
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