David Ward MP under fire over latest Israel slur

The MP who accused “the Jews” of inflicting daily atrocities against the Palestinians has again sparked anger after questioning how long “apartheid” Israel can exist.

The Bradford East MP -who in January was censured by his party over his remarks on Jews and the Holocaust – took to twitter yesterday to say: “Am I wrong or am I right? At long last the Zionists are losing the battle – how long can the apartheid state of Israel last.”

Ward wrote six months ago ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, that he was “saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust could, within a few years of liberation, be inflicting atrocities on the Palestinians in the new state of Israel – and continue to do so”.

Despite issuing an apology for “unintended offence” and pledging not to use the term “the Jews” again in that context, he later emailed the Jewish News asking if it would be more acceptable to replace the words “the Jews” with “the Jewish community”. In the wake of those comments, a disciplinary process was opened but has yet to be concluded – a fact which remains an ongoing sore in relations between the party and the community.

Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said this weekend’s latest tweet would “only fuel the view that extremism and politics of hate are acceptable Lib Dem discourse”.

The comments come only days after fellow Lib Dem MP, Sir Bob Russell used a House of Commons on the national curriculum debate to call for the Palestinians’ plight to be given the same prominence as the Shoah in British schools.