EXCLUSIVE: Cabinet Office anti-racism trainer wished death and mutilation on ‘Zionists’ - The Jewish Chronicle

An anti-racism trainer who ran an inclusivity workshop for civil servants at the Cabinet Office wished death and mutilation on “Zionists”, the JC can reveal.

Mizanur Rahman, known as Mizan the Poet, oversaw a training session at the Cabinet Office in 2019 called “an inclusive Britain”, despite having shared pictures that likened Zionists to Nazis and written: “Israel = white supremacy.”

In 2014, Mr Rahman responded to a tweet about an Israeli soldier who had lost his hands in an attack by Hamas with the tweet: “Hopefully he, and all IDF soldiers and Zionists, will lose more than just their limbs … their lives!!!!”

Another post by Mr Rahman from April 2014 said: “#Israel has no right to exist. Israel was founded on terrorism, ethnic cleansing and practises antisemitism as #palestinians are #semitic.”

He also led an event at the Ministry of Defence in 2019, in which he spoke out against “British Israelis joining the #Israel Defence forces and committing human rights abuses in #Palestine”. After the Cabinet Office workshop, Mr Rahman tweeted:

“I spoke about institutional racism / Islamophobia, the role of the media, Prevent, detention centres and other ways that racism manifests in society.”

He claimed that the feedback was good, adding that he hoped to do more.

Mr Rahman this month lodged a complaint after Labour banned him from its list of potential council candidates. He claimed the decision was based on “institutional islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism”.

A Cabinet Officespokesman told the JC that it had since tightened up on due diligence on invited speakers, including carrying out a thorough scan of social media posts.

In 2014, together with a tweet about the “similarities” between the Palestinian situation and the Holocaust, Mr Rahman posted photos of inmates at Buchenwald next to an image of Palestinians at the Ephraim-Taybeh checkpoint.

A post alongside the images stated: “In the Holy Land, the Zionist government, with the support of the majority of Israel’s population, are themselves perpetuating a holocaust against the Palestinian people. After the bodies are counted and the atrocities documented, how will the Zionist government excuse themselves for committing these crimes against humanity?”

Asked whether he still believed that all Zionists should die, Mr Rahman tweeted: “The answer to that is no. I, personally would like a peaceful solution to the conflict where Palestinian rights would be upheld and treated equally to their Israeli counterparts.

“With that said, the Palestinians are living under an occupation and so therefore according to the attorney and human rights activist Stephen L Cohen ‘Palestinians have a legal right to an armed struggle’.”

Mr Rahman added he had “nothing against Jewish self-determination”. He added: “With that said, various human rights organisations … have stated that Israel is practicing [sic] apartheid … To me, apartheid and settler colonialism have absolutely no right to exist no matter who its done by and who its [sic] done to.”

In 2018, he attended a Quds Day march in London at which flags were flown for the terrorist group Hezbollah and one speaker called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

When former London Mayor Ken Livingstone resigned from the Labour Party over his claims that Hitler supported Zionism, Mr Rahman described the view as “pure historical fact”.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said it took a “zero tolerance” approach to discrimination. He added: “The Cabinet Office has recently adopted an increased due diligence process for guest speakers in line with cross-government best practice. This includes enhanced searches of social media. All events are consistent with the Civil Service Code of Conduct.”

An earlier version of this story referred to a Tweet about Israel and white supremacy being written in 2019. It was in fact written in 2014. This has been corrected

Topics:

Antisemitism