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UKIP election candidate quits after claiming Israel should 'kidnap Obama'

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A Ukip Parliamentary candidate has stepped down after he called for Barack Obama to be extradited to Israel.

Jeremy Zeid was contesting the Hendon constituency in north-west London for the right-wing party.

The seat has the second highest number of Jewish voters in Britain.

Mr Zeid, a member of Kenton United Synagogue, quit last Thursday after he wrote on Facebook: “Once Obama is out of office, the Israelis should move to extradite the b*****d or ‘do an Eichmann’ on him and lock him up for leaking state secrets.”

His decision to resign was made public on Monday.

All I said is that we should ‘do an Eichmann’ and extradite him. It is a private opinion.

Mr Zeid, a former Conservative councillor, also wrote: “Kidnap the bugger, like they did to Eichmann, who suddenly found that he’d woken up in Israel.”

He later said he stood by the comments and had been expressing “a private opinion”.

“Remember that phrase ‘Je Suis Charlie’? Well, freedom of speech,” he explained. Obama wants to do a deal with Iran, which wants to wipe Israel out.

“People can spin it any way they want. If people do not like it, well, I am sorry.”

Mr Zeid, a decorator, added: “I am done with politics because people focus on the minutiae. It has taken a toll on my health, my well-being, my business.

“This is a dirty, disgusting, revolting, horrible election campaign with slurs and accusations, and I am glad to be out of it.”​

A Ukip spokesman said: “Jeremy Zeid resigned as a candidate last week, citing his health. Ukip accepted his resignation.”

The party’s new candidate in Hendon is Raymond Shamash, a dentist who served as a medical officer in the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War.

Meanwhile Keith Fraser, Ukip’s candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, has called for free flights to Iraq and Syria for Britons who want to fight for Islamic State.

Mr Fraser, a member of Woodside Park United Synagogue, said: “People who want to fight for groups like IS, Boko Haram or Hamas, well, we should charter a plane and send them all over there in one go.

“Then we should take away their British passports so they do not come back. If they want to go and fight, let them. They are a cancer that needs to be cut out before it becomes terminal.”

Mr Fraser, a chartered surveyor who will take on Labour’s Diane Abbott in a constituency where 11.3 per cent of voters are Jewish, said the rise in radical Islamism posed an increased threat to British Jews.

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