Britain's Labour suspends councillors over Israel remarks

Britain's opposition Labour party suspended three councillors today over comments about Israel posted on social media, as a row over anti-Semitism rocked the party.
The controversy, which hit just before key regional elections on Thursday, had already forced leader Jeremy Corbyn to announce an independent review into racism and suspend members including a former mayor of London pending investigations.
On Monday the party suspended three more members including Shah Hussain, a councillor in the northern town of Burnley, for a Tweet he wrote to Israeli footballer Yossi Benayoun in 2014.
"You are a complete and utter plonker, you and your country doing the same thing that hitler did to ur race in ww2" Hussain wrote to the midfielder in a row over the conflict in Gaza.

Hussain said he would fight the suspension.
"I wanted him to reflect on what Hitler did to the Jewish people, and then I wanted him to reflect on that and to see what's happening in Palestine, can it be seen as the same?" he said.
Two others, Nottingham City councillor Ilyas Aziz and councillor and former mayor of Blackburn, Salim Mulla, were also suspended after a right-wing blog shared old posts from their Facebook pages that suggested Israel should be relocated to the United States.
Aziz denied having written the post that read: "Perhaps it would have been wiser to create Israel in America it's big enough. They could relocate even now.".