A UK Labour councilor recently suspended over anti-Semitism has doubled down on his tweet, in which he compared Israelis to Adolf Hitler.
He had been commenting on a discussion between two football players - Israeli Yossi Benayoun and his former teammate Joey Barton. Benayoun had criticized former teammate Joey Barton for anti-Israeli statements the latter had made during the 2014 Gaza conflict, and Hussein responded to Benayoun with the message: "Yossi, ur an idiot, looks like hartson didn’t kick u hard enough in the head, joey top man!! #FreePalestine."
Shah Hussein was one of three Labour councilors suspended yesterday for making anti-Semitic comments online. Later Monday, it was revealed Labour has suspended 50 party members in total over allegations of anti-Semitism, as the crisis within the party reaches ever greater heights.
But speaking to the BBC Daily Politics Show, Hussein denied his tweet was anti-Semitic. Instead, he insisted that Israel's war with Hamas and other Islamist terrorist groups was comparable to the Nazi genocide of Jews, and went on to claim he was being victimized because of his Muslim identity.
"It's unfortunate, but within the current climate, with the witch hunt that is going on... it was expected that that would happen," he said, echoing sentiments by senior Labour politician Ken Livingstone, who was also suspended for comments about Hitler.
"I happen to be a Muslim councilor and therefore my comments have been taken out of context and I've been censored," Hussein continued.
Hussein also denied comments he made in a previous interview were anti-Semitic.
Speaking to the Daily Express, he'd said Jews had no right to take offense to his comments.
"If Jewish people find it offensive then I think they need to think about what the rest of the world thinks," he retorted.