LONDON: The director of the largest Muslim charity in the UK, who is a sympathizer of Palestinian militant group Hamas, has resigned after a series of anti-Semitic Facebook posts came to light.
Heshmat Khalifa, the former director and a trustee of Islamic Relief Worldwide, resigned after British newspaper The Times confronted the charity about his anti-Semitic posts. Khalifa also used social media to praise Hamas and its armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.
The Charity Commission for England and Wales has launched a preliminary investigation into Islamic Relief after comments that include the labeling of Jews as the “grandchildren of monkeys and pigs” came to light, The Times reported.
Khalifa, who was born and educated in Egypt, also attacked the country’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi using anti-Semitic insults in more than a dozen posts in 2014 and 2015, The Times reported.
Islamic Relief, which describes itself as an “independent humanitarian and development organization,” published a statement on Friday saying: “We reject and condemn terrorism and believe that all forms of discrimination — including anti-Semitism — are unacceptable.”
The charity added that Khalifa’s Facebook posts “contravene the values and principles of Islamic Relief Worldwide,” which “sincerely regrets any offense caused.”
Khalifa has expressed regret at the “language and sentiments expressed” in the posts, and said he was sorry for publishing them, The Times reported.
Head of UK Muslim charity quits over anti-Semitic posts
https://arab.news/c7a78
Head of UK Muslim charity quits over anti-Semitic posts
- Khalifa also used social media to praise Hamas and its armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.
- He attacked the Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi using anti-Semitic insults in more than a dozen posts
Bolivia and Israel to restore ties severed over the war in Gaza
- Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month
- The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties
LA PAZ, Bolivia: Bolivia's new right-wing government said Tuesday that it would restore diplomatic relations with Israel, the latest sign of the dramatic geopolitical realignment underway in the South American country that was once among the most vocal critics of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties, which Bolivia's previous left-wing government severed two years ago over Israel's devastating campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Bolivia said the effort came as part of a new foreign policy strategy under conservative President Rodrigo Paz aimed at “rebuilding Bolivia's international prestige, opening new economic opportunities and strengthening alliances that directly benefit the country and our citizens abroad."
Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo is in the midst of a whirlwind trip to Washington for meetings with American officials as his government works to warm long-chilly relations with the United States and unravel nearly two decades of hard-line, anti-Western policies under the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party that left Bolivia economically isolated and diplomatically allied with China, Russia and Venezuela.
Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month.
In announcing his expected meeting with Aramayo on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Bolivia for scrapping Israeli visa controls and said he spoke to Paz after the center-right senator's Oct. 19 election victory to express “Israel’s desire to open a new chapter” in relations with Bolivia.
Paz entered office last month, ending the dominance of the MAS party founded by Evo Morales, the charismatic former coca-growing union leader who became Bolivia's first Indigenous president in 2006. Not long after taking power, Morales sent Israel's ambassador packing and cozied up to Iran over their shared enmity toward the U.S. and Israel.
When protests over Morales' disputed 2019 reelection prompted him to resign under pressure from the military, a right-wing interim government took over and restored full diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Israel as it sought to undo many of Morales’ popular policies.
But 2020 elections brought the MAS party back to power with the presidency of Luis Arce, who in 2023 once again cut ties with Israel in protest over its military actions in Gaza.
Other left-wing Latin American countries, like Chile and Colombia, soon made similar moves, recalling their ambassadors and joining South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the United Nations’ highest judicial body.
