A file obtained by LBC revealed Zarah Sultana sent tweets telling someone who she described as pro-Israel to 'jump off a cliff'
November 15, 2019 11:29
Labour’s election candidate for Coventry South, who previously apologised for saying she would “celebrate” the deaths of Tony Blair and Benjamin Nentanayu, has been forced to apologise again after it was revealed she had told someone who was pro-Israel "jump off a cliff".
Zarah Sultana, a 26-year-old paid Labour staffer and West Midlands regional campaigner, was selected last week as the candidate for the seat from a shortlist of just two candidates.
LBC obtained a file of the embattled candidate's tweets that showed Ms Sultana told another user, who she described as being pro-Israel, to "jump off a cliff".
In another message Ms Sultana compared between the Holocaust and those who died in Iraq, Afganistan, Palestine and Chechnya.
She also tweeted her belief in one state but said: "Zionists will not willingly assimilate with Palestinians."
In another tweet Ms Sultana said that her mum was "p*ssed" after her dad told her that she was a Jew.
LBC has obtained a file of anti-Semitic tweets from Labour's Zarah Sultana's account.
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) November 14, 2019
- one "pro-Israel" tweeter told to "jump off a cliff".
- Holocaust compared to "Muslim Holocaust" in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Complains "Zionists will not willingly assimilate to Palestinians".
In a statement published to Twitter, she said: “I am sorry that I posted these offensive comments on social media as a teenager. I was young and immature and the language I used was wrong.
"Through my political activism I have been on a journey which has included working closely with Jewish comrades who have taught me about the language and history of antisemitism.”
She said she had visited Auschwitz in 2013 and the trip had left her determined to “never to minimise the suffering of Jewish people.”
But further tweets uncovered this week show that she went on to make offensive remarks in 2015.
Ms Sultana has already apologised for saying it was ok to “celebrate the death of any person regardless of what they did”.
The former Birmingham University student was revealed to have written: “Try and stop me when the likes of Blair, Netanyahu and Bush die.”
In her apology for these remarks on Monday, Ms Sultana said she had been "exasperated by endless cycles of global suffering, violence and needless killing".
Ms Sultana, who sat on the national executive of Young Labour and the national executive council of the National Union of Students, wrote of the world leaders: “The sooner they meet their creator the better. The concepts of justice and accountability don’t truly exist in this life. Only in the next.”
In 2015, Ms Sultana also wrote of her support for “violent resistance” by Palestinians.
She then used the hashtag #signsofanextremistMuslim in the same post.
She wrote: “There will come a time in the near future where those (who) lobby for Israel feel the same shame and regret as South African apartheid supporters.”
She added: “It is not progressive to champion a state created through ethnic cleansing, sustained through occupation, apartheid and war crimes.”
She told the BBC these tweets were from a "deleted account dating back several years from when I was a student.”
She was also found to have repeatedly used racial slurs to brand Jewish students as "YT" and "the white woman".
In one Facebook post directed at a Jewish student, Ms Sultana, who sat on the national executive of Young Labour and the national executive of the National Union of Students, wrote: "I can't believe this YT thinks she can represent us."
'YT' is a slang expression for a white person, often used as a pejorative by people who wish to stress their own non-white heritage.
