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Anti-Semitism Row: Now Councillor Suspended

Labour has been forced to suspend a councillor for anti-Israel comments posted on Facebook as the party continues to be batttered over its handling of the anti-Semitic crisis.

Nottingham city councillor Ilyas Aziz shared a number of posts on the social media site, one suggesting Israel be relocated in the US - the same comments that saw Bradford West MP Naz Shah suspended last week.

He also posted a link to an article about Nazi Germany with the comments: "A reminder of the treatment and suffering of Jews in Nazi Germany. ARE THERE ANY SIMILIARITIES TO HOW ISRAEL IS TREATING PALESTINIANS."

:: Livingstone 'Can't Remember' Why He Made Hitler Comments

After the comments, which were written in 2014, were disclosed on the Guido Fawkes website, Labour announced it had suspended Mr Aziz "pending an investigation".

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Asked about his posts before he was suspended, Mr Aziz said politicians had to be careful but that if governments were doing something wrong "they should be criticised".

And he said he supported the suspensions imposed on Ms Shah and the former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who was suspended on Thursday after claiming that Hitler supported Zionism "before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews".

:: Ken Livingstone: A Profile

Mr Corbyn has been roundly criticised for failing to take a tougher line on anti-Semitism in the party but last week finally ordered an independent inquiry into the problem.

He has insisted that the team is "united" but with crucial local elections looming and polls predicting Labour could lose more than 100 seats, there are suggestions some frontbenchers could leave.

Shadow cabinet minister Diane Abbott said it was "a smear to say that the Labour Party has a problem with anti-Semitism" and said there had only been 12 incidents reported since Mr Corbyn came to power.

Mr Livingstone's comments linking Hitler with Zionism - for which he has declined to apologise in a string of media interviews - were "extremely offensive", she told the BBC1 Andrew Marr Show, but not part of any wider pattern.

She said she would be "dismayed if some people were hurling around accusations of anti-Semitism as part of some intra-Labour Party dispute".

:: Livingstone Suspended Over Hitler Comments

Unite union leader Len McCluskey said Mr Corbyn was the victim of "a cynical attempt to manipulate anti-Semitism for political aims", telling the BBC that the fight had been started by party grandees who "get out of their wheelchair and toss a few hand grenades in".

Jewish donors are reported to have abandoned the party, including Sir Ronald Cohen, the social investment pioneer who donated more than £2.5m to Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

He told The Times: "There is no room for racism among the values of the Labour party. If the leadership does not stamp out racism now, racism will stamp out the Labour party."