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Lib Dems Palestine group says sorry over links to Holocaust denial website

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The Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine group has apologised after it repeatedly posted links to a website which promotes Zionist conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.

The group posted a series of links on Facebook to articles on an American site called The Ugly Truth, which claims to highlight “Zionism, Jewish extremism and a few other nasty items making our world uninhabitable today”.

After being contacted by the JC, LDFoP administrator Miranda Pinch apologised and said she would not in future use pieces from the site, which also promotes allegations that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Ms Pinch, who is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and converted from Judaism to Christianity, said: “I am always very careful about what I put on the page and I would never knowingly put anything that could in any way be seen as Holocaust denial.

“As my mother was a Holocaust survivor and many of her relatives died in the Holocaust, I certainly would not want in any way to diminish that period of history or any of its facts.

I would certainly never want to diminish the Holocaust

“It is true that I have occasionally used articles from The Ugly Truth, but I was not aware that the site had ever actually denied the Holocaust, and I stay clear of many of its conspiracy theory articles on any subject.”

Church of England vicar Reverend Stephen Sizer last year apologised for offending the Jewish community after he linked to The Ugly Truth from his own website.

Ms Pinch has in the past organised events with Rev Sizer. She has also been a guest speaker at Palestine Solidarity Campaign events.

The Facebook episode is not the first time Ms Pinch has been involved in controversy.

In 2010 Christian Aid was forced to apologise after claiming Israeli settlers had sexually abused Palestinian children in Hebron.

Mr Pinch, from Winchester, Hampshire, had spent time in the West Bank town monitoring “human rights abuses” as part of an accompaniment programme funded by the charity.

She returned to Britain and informed Christian Aid that a Palestinian headmistress had made allegations of verbal abuse. But the charity then falsely suggested the alleged abuse had referred to sexual attacks by Israeli soldiers.

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