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Bye Bye, Jajah – activist fired from paper for comments glorifying terrorism against Israel
January 10, 2017 11:43
A former Hizbollah fighter, who had ties to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, has been fired from his Belgian newspaper column.
Dyab Abou Jahjah, the founder of the Arab European League, had made a series of inflammatory statements following the latest terror attack in Israel.
After a terrorist drove a truck into a group of Israeli soldiers on Sunday, killing four of them, Jajah tweeted: “An attack on occupation soldiers in occupied territory is not terrorism! It is an act of Resistance. #FreePalestine”
In a blog post, he stated that the attack “took place in an occupied territory and targeted the occupation army. There is no argument whatsoever, ethically nor legally, to claim that it is illegitimate.”
The Belgian newspaper, De Standaard, subsequently terminated his contract. Yesterday Jahjah responded by tweeting: “You fired me because I stood up for the right of an oppressed people to resist occupation. This is defining for who we are.”
Jahjah has a history of controversial statements. In 2007 he claimed to have published a picture of Anne Frank in bed with Adolf Hitler alongside the caption "put this in your diary, Anne".
In 2009 he shared a stage at an event in Parliament with Mr Corbyn. Jajah was later banned by the Home Office from entering the UK, with Mr Corbyn saying he would lead a campaign against the decision.
During a BBC radio interview in August 2015, Mr Corbyn claimed he did not know Jajah, but was then forced to issue a retraction the same day after pictures of the two men together were published.
Jajah published a blog post in the wake of the incident, saying he had “met and collaborated” with Mr Corbyn in 2009.
“We had, I think, two times lunch or breakfast together so I cannot say that Mr Corbyn is a personal friend, but he is absolutely a political friend”, he wrote.
