March 09, 2018•Update: March 09, 2018
By Abdel Raouf Arnaout
JERUSALEM
The U.K.’s Labour Party has suspended a number of members for actively supporting Palestine -- or criticizing Israel -- on social-media platforms, the Jerusalem Post reported Friday.
According to the newspaper, the members in question had belonged to a Facebook group -- called “Palestine Live” -- that shared comments denying the Holocaust.
Members of the group had reportedly expressed views that the Jerusalem Post described as “anti-Semitic”.
These views had included a number of “conspiracy theories”, such as Israeli involvement in the 9/11 attacks on New York City in 2001.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn had reportedly been an active member of the group before leaving it in 2015.
Corbyn has been accused in the past of “anti-Semitism” due to his ties with individuals who support Hamas and Hezbollah and with so-called “Holocaust deniers".
According to the Jerusalem Post, Jonathan Sacks, a prominent British rabbi, has called on the Labour Party to adopt a “zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism”.
The party, Sacks was recently quoted as saying, should pursue this approach “much more vigorously than it has done until now”.
Israel generally considers criticism of the self-proclaimed Jewish state -- or stated support for the Palestinians -- as “anti-Semitic”.
