Naz Shah, the Labour MP suspended by the party for a series of antisemitic social media posts, has said she will temporarily step down from a Commons committee investigating Jew-hatred.
Ms Shah, Bradford West MP, will not be involved in the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into rising antisemitism in Britain.
The committee agreed to her immediately stopping her work with the group today, a week after she apologised for the posts she made about Jews and Israel which led to her resigning as a parliamentary secretary to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.
Ms Shah had shared a highly offensive graphic arguing in favour of the inflammatory “transportation” policy two years ago, during the summer before her election.
In August 2014, she posted a tweet with a link to a blog which claimed Zionism had been used to "groom" Jews to "exert political influence at the highest levels of public office". In a post in September that year she appeared to liken Israel’s policies to those of Hitler.
Committee chair Keith Vaz MP told the PoliticsHome site: "The committee met and had a discussion with Naz Shah about her recent comments. Naz Shah asked to be excused from any further deliberations of the Home Affairs Select Committee until current issues have been resolved.
"She will not take part in the antisemitism inquiry or any other inquiries and will not receive any papers.
"This will be with immediate effect. The committee unanimously agreed with the decision taken by her."
The JC can reveal that Ms Shah signed a six-month old Parliamentary early day motion on antisemitism on Monday last week – the day she was made aware that her social media comments were going to be widely publicised.
The motion, titled “Antisemitism and Palestine solidarity”, notes the links between rising antisemitism in Britain and violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
It acknowledged that the single biggest contributing factor to the growth of Jew hatred in 2014 had been the Gaza conflict.
Philippa Whitford, Scottish National Party MP for Central Ayrshire, tabled the motion last November.
The MPs who signed it said they wanted to make a clear distinction between the Jewish community and those responsible for deciding Israeli government policy.
Ms Shah’s name was added to the EDM last Monday, hours before the Guido Fawkes website published her the antisemitic social media posts.
The select committee inquiry will call David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone as witnesses to give evidence about the increase of Jew-hate.
The news came as it was claimed that terror group Hamas had issued a statement welcoming the support it had received from Labour leader Mr Corbyn.
Taher Al-Nunu, a senior Hamas official, was quoted by the Breitbart Jerusalem site as claiming Mr Corbyn’s “engagement” with Hamas was “a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received”.
The head of Hamas’s media section reportedly told the site: “We welcome the declaration of the Labour chairman and see his engagement as a very important statement that is also a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received.
“It comes as part of the international boycott campaign that the enemy (Israel) is suffering from. This campaign is succeeding on both the economic and political levels and it comes at a moment that the enemy is facing difficulties in justifying its crimes against the Palestinian people.
“We consider the statements of the Labour leader to be an important message to people in Western countries that Hamas is not and will not be considered a terrorist group and our struggle is reduced to the borders of occupied Palestine.”
Hamas was later reported to have denied speaking to Breitbart and Al-Nunu denied making the comments attributed to him.
Meanwhile MPAC, the Muslim organisation which has regularly campaigned against candidates who support Israel , has encouraged its supporters not to vote for Labour’s Sadiq Khan in Thursday’s London mayor election.
Quoting an interview Mr Khan gave to the JC at the start of the campaign , MPAC said “a quick look at Khan’s recent comments show he stands for Israel”.
It said Mr Khan’s “pro-Israel credentials” were clear, adding: “If you vote for Sadiq Khan you are approving of his pro-Israel comments – which he feels comfortable in making because he doesn’t think he has to work for the Muslim vote (because he thinks the majority of you are going to blindly vote for him just because he’s Muslim and/or Labour).
“Unless Muslims hold Khan to account, he will continue to show his support for the apartheid state of Israel.
“A vote for Sadiq Khan…will be a vote for Israel.”
