Complaint lodged against barrister who tweeted ‘Zionism is a kind of racism’

A complaint has been lodged to the Bar Standards Board against a barrister who Tweeted that “Zionism is a kind of racism.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) made the complaint after Franck Magennis, a barrister from Garden Court Chambers, tweeted on December 17th: “Zionism is a kind of racism. It is essentially colonial. It has manifested in an apartheid regime calling itself “the Jewish state” that dominates non-Jews, and particularly Palestinians. You can’t practice anti-racism at the same time as identifying with, or supporting, Zionism.”

Described on his chamber’s website as “an expert on the Palestinian struggle for emancipation from Israeli apartheid and occupation” Magennis has frequently called Israel a ‘brutal apartheid regime’ on his Twitter account.

Jewish News understands that CAA has called on the regulatory body to investigate the barrister, on the basis that his tweet breaches the standards expected of those in his profession and therefore damages public trust.

According to the intergovernmental organisation focusing on Holocaust-related issues, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a contemporary example of antisemitism is “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)”.

CAA has said that the latter part of his Tweet (“You can’t practice anti-racism at the same time as identifying with, or supporting, Zionism”) ‘besmirches British Jews and the Jewish community.”