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UK Labour party suspends senior lawmaker Diane Abbott over comment about Jews and racism
(JTA) — Britain’s Labour Party suspended senior lawmaker Diane Abbott for writing in a letter that Jews, Irish and Traveller people “experience prejudice” but “are not all their lives subject to racism.”
Abbott, 69, who has represented a London constituency in parliament since 1987, wrote a letter to the editor of the Observer, a Sunday newspaper owned by the Guardian, in response to an article by Tomiwa Owolade titled “Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated.” The article focused on a study about rates of racism in the United Kingdom.
“It is true that many types of white people with points of difference” experience prejudice, Abbott wrote in her letter. “But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote.” Travellers are an Irish ethnic people not related to the Romani ethnic group, with whom they are sometimes incorrectly grouped together with.
Abbott later apologized “for any anguish caused.”
“I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them,” she wrote in a statement posted on Twitter. “Racism takes many forms, and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.”
After years under a cloud of antisemitism controversy under former leader Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party has in recent years under new leader Keir Starmer swiftly penalized party members who have made antisemitic or controversial statements about Jews or Israel.
In February, a public watchdog ended its over two years of special monitoring of the party. The Equality and Human Rights Commission ruled that Labour had taken sufficient steps to root out the antisemitism problem that the watchdog said Corbyn allowed to persist under his leadership.
After over a decade of Conservative rule, polls show that Labour is poised to win the United Kingdom’s next general election, which could take place next year.
Owolade criticized Abbott, who was the first Black woman to be elected to British parliament, in an article in the New Statesman on Sunday.
“[S]he is plainly wrong even on her own terms. Jewish people and Irish people have most certainly been discriminated against in America: in the early 20th century, for example, many US Ivy League universities placed quotas that restricted the number of Jewish students they could admit,” he wrote.
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The post UK Labour party suspends senior lawmaker Diane Abbott over comment about Jews and racism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.
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Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – The US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.
US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.
Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.
The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.
The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.
Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.
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Lebanon Close to Completing Disarmament of Hezbollah South of Litani River, Says PM
FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam speaks to journalists at the government headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, December 3, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
Lebanon is close to completing the disarmament of Hezbollah south of the Litani River, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Saturday, as the country races to fulfil a key demand of its ceasefire with Israel before a year-end deadline.
The US-backed ceasefire, agreed in November 2024, ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and required the disarmament of the Iran-aligned terrorirst group, starting in areas south of the river adjacent to Israel.
Lebanese authorities, led by President Joseph Aoun and Salam, tasked the US-backed Lebanese army on August 5 with devising a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms by the end of the year.
“Prime Minister Salam affirmed that the first phase of the weapons consolidation plan related to the area south of the Litani River is only days away from completion,” a statement from his office said.
“The state is ready to move on to the second phase – namely (confiscating weapons) north of the Litani River – based on the plan prepared by the Lebanese army pursuant to a mandate from the government,” Salam added.
The statement came after Salam held talks with Simon Karam, Lebanon’s top civilian negotiator on a committee overseeing the Hezbollah-Israel truce.
Since the ceasefire, the sides have regularly accused each other of violations, with Israel questioning the Lebanese army’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah. Israeli warplanes have increasingly targeted Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and even in the capital.
Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Muslim group, has tried to resist the pressure – from its mainly Christian and Sunni Muslim opponents in Lebanon as well as from the US and Saudi Arabia – to disarm, saying it would be a mistake while Israel continues its air strikes on the country.
Israel has publicly urged Lebanese authorities to fulfil the conditions of the truce, saying it will act “as necessary” if Lebanon fails to take steps against Hezbollah.