Labour MP: Islamophobia in UK connected to Israeli operations in Gaza

Israeli military operations in Gaza were connected to rising Islamophobia in the United Kingdom, Norwich South Parliament Member Clive Lewis claimed on social media on Saturday, leading an antisemitism watchdog to file a complaint with the Labour Party.

Responding to the IDF's Saturday Al-Taabin school airstrike that killed 31 terrorists, according to the IDF and dozens of civilians, according to Hamas, Lewis said that "The link between the daily inhumanity being metted (sic) out to Palestinians and rising Islamophobia in the UK, are not unconnected."

"The inhumanity being shown to one is giving ‘permission’ for the other," Lewis wrote on X. "These actions diminish us all."

British Media reported that Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) had contacted the Labour Party and called for his suspension, claiming that it was a conspiratorial statement that blamed Zionists and Israelis for the country's civil unrest involving the British anti-immigration movement and Muslim activists.

Hayes and Harlington MP John McDonnell defended his fellow party member on social media, saying that accusing Lewis of antisemitism used a "bizarre warped logic."

Lewis commented "on how the visible inhumanity towards Muslims in Gaza displayed daily on our screens feeds into the inhumanity of some in our own country towards Muslims here," McDonnell said on Monday.

Anti-immigration protests 

Anti-immigration protests and riots erupted in the UK on July 30 following the murder of three young British girls by the son of Rwandan immigrants. Rumors circulated on social media that the suspect was Muslim or an asylum seeker. Nativist and Muslim activists clashed including with police. British police departments said that Mosques were attacked and anti-Muslim assaults occurred during the week of demonstrations and violence.

Muslim watchdog group Tell MAMA said in an August 2 report that 27% of surveyed British Muslims had experienced anti-Muslim hate in 2023, and that there had been a 300% increase of verbal abuse and anti-Muslim prejudice against British Muslims since the October 7 Massacre.

Lewis wrote on Saturday that he also believed that the rise of antisemitism was also connected to the Israel-Hamas war, but "today I’m focusing (sic) on the scores of Palestinian children just bombed and killed in their school."

The anti-immigration riots saw both far-right and radical Islamist elements engage in antisemitic rhetoric, with extremist Muslim activists claiming that Zionists were behind the unrest. Community Security Trust said in a report last Thursday that the first half of 2024 had the "highest ever total" antisemitic incidents "reported to CST in the first six months of any year." CST recorded 1,978 acts of antisemitism in 2024.