Hackney MP Diane Abbott has been strongly criticised for a now-deleted social media post that accused the “Jewish Defence Forces” of committing genocide in Gaza.
On Tuesday morning, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington shared a post on X displaying a quote from American journalist Chris Hedges, writing about his account from Gaza in 2001, where he alleged that IDF “soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport”.
At the time, his account was strongly disputed by media fairness campaign group Camera, who described his remarks as “incendiary” and said his recounting of the incident referenced was at odds with coverage from other outlets.
Abbott shared the post along with the caption: “Beyond horrific that the Jewish Defence Force is gunning down Palestinians as they queue for food #GazaGenocide”, before deleting the post later that morning.
It is not clear whether Abbott was aware that the quote referred to an incident more than two decades ago, rather than the recent shootings around aid distribution centres in Gaza, but the veteran left-winger was strongly criticised by several Labour figures.
Fiona Sharpe, a spokesperson for campaign group Labour Against Antisemitism told the JC it was “sad” to see “a groundbreaking MP – the first black woman to be elected – reduced to not knowing the difference between the Israel Defence Force and ‘Jewish Defence Forces’”.
“Diane Abbott chose to make a derogatory comment on a totally unsubstantiated allegation harking back to medieval libels about Jews. This should cause the leadership of the party to question her appropriateness as an MP, particularly as so many of her constituents are Jewish”, Sharpe added, making reference to the sizeable Charedi community in Stamford Hill.
Likewise, Hemel Hempstead MP David Taylor told the JC: “This isn’t a slip of the tongue, it’s a slip of the mask.
“Language like this fans the flames of antisemitism and puts Jewish communities in the UK at risk. There’s no place for this in our politics and no excuse for it either.”
And another Labour MP, who spoke to the JC anonymously, alluded to the failures to tackle antisemitism within the party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, who made Abbott his shadow home secretary from 2016 to 2020.
“They all said Corbyn had a blind spot – about the size of Israel – and Abbott appears to share it with her latest ‘accident’”, they told the JC.
Moreover, a senior Labour source, who is Jewish, accused Abbott of undermining the government’s strong response to “the appalling scenes at Glastonbury and the BBC's woeful coverage at the weekend”.
“Of course you can trust Diane to put her foot in it”, they said.
Prior to the last general election, Abbott was suspended by Labour for writing a letter to the Observer in April 2023, in which she claimed that Jews did not face racism, only prejudice. Her comments were condemned as “antisemitic” at the time by party leader Sir Keir Starmer.
The veteran MP apologised following a public outcry and said that the document had been an “initial draft” sent by mistake.
However, she was allowed to stand as the Labour candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, despite speculation that she would be blocked as the candidate.
In a subsequent interview with the BBC after her re-election, she repeated her apology, telling Newsnight: “I did apologise at the time, but I have no problem in apologising again. It was never my intention to cause offense at the time.”
Speaking to Victoria Derbyshire, she added: “What I was trying to talk about was race-based discrimination. Because, if you walk down the street, nobody can tell whether you're Irish or anything else. But if I walk down the street, or my son walks down the street, people know straight away that he's black.”
One Labour source the JC spoke to didn’t think the party would discipline Abbot for her comments.
“Diane Abbott, and the rest of her fellow travellers on the left, like to say it's not antisemitic to criticise Israel, and yet once again here she is directly making the link between Jews and the conflict in Gaza.”
They added: “I don't expect to see any action though, as the Labour Party has made a strategic pivot to relentlessly criticise Israel in order to shore up the Muslim vote.”
A Labour Party spokesperson told the JC that: “All complaints are taken seriously and assessed in line with the Labour Party’s rules and procedures.”
Diane Abbott has been contacted for comment.
