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by Shiryn Ghermezian
Former Tory Foreign Minister Sayeeda Warsi. Photo: Twitter.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a former minister of state at the UK Foreign Office, was denounced by the chairman of the Conservative Party on Tuesday for a Twitter post in which she compared the deaths of five people in Jerusalem’s synagogue terror attack to protests at the Al Aqsa mosque.
Early in the morning on Tuesday, two Palestinian terrorists stormed a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof killing four Jewish worshippers and a Druze Israeli policeman. The terrorists were later shot dead by Israeli police.
Following the attack, Warsi tweeted: “Israeli extremists storm Al Aqsa & intimidate worshippers – Palestinian extremists storm synagogue & kill 4 worshippers.”
Her comments sparked outrage on Twitter and were condemned by Tory Party Chairman Grant Shapps, who make it clear that Warsi’s statements didn’t reflect the party’s views.
“To be clear @SayeedaWarsi speaks for herself, not the party,” he wrote. “Our prayers are w/ families of those murdered. No justification for terrorism.”
Warsi replied: “There can never be justification for killing of innocent civilians Israeli or Palestinian. #justiceforall not #Hypocrisy.” She then asked another Twitter user, former Jewish leader Jeremy Newmark, “r u suggesting there is NO link (nt justification) between murders in the synagogue & the weeks of intimidation & attacks.”
Warsi, who resigned from her post in August over what she called the government’s “morally indefensible” policy on Gaza, claimed that both Palestinians and Israelis have died in recent weeks from extremists. She asserted that UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband have both said, “a Palestinian life is equal to an Israeli life so let’s ALL condemn the killing on BOTH sides.”
Warsi later penned a blog entry for the Huffington Post UK in which she condemned Tuesday’s murders “as I have loudly condemned previous instances of Palestinian violence against civilians.” She then called out Shapps for recently voting against the declaration of a Palestinian state.
“My successor as Conservative Party chairman, Grant Shapps, is only too willing to criticise Palestinian terror while refusing to vote in favour of a Palestinian state in parliament, and give young Palestinians hope and dignity,” she wrote. “Remember: the indisputable lesson of modern Middle East history is that violence breeds violence.”
