Sadiq Khan is likely to win a third term this year. (Photo credit: Buzzfeed)
Sadiq Khan became London Mayor in 2016. He beat Zac Goldsmith in a hate-filled campaign when Goldsmith, who is Jewish, ran a campaign smearing Khan as a terrorist sympathiser, and as someone who had terrorist friends.
Goldsmith’s campaign was widely regarded as Islamophobic – but the damage was already done, it gave a green light to Jewish and other extremists to go after Khan whenever they saw fit.
The Islamophobic hate Khan has faced since then has not subsided – it continues till today all across social media.
He is regularly attacked by the Israel lobby, and the latest attacks are based on an interview he did with Zeteo, Mehdi Hasan’s new media venture.
In the interview he raises a legitimate and reasonable point – on why the Chief Rabbi Mirvis and other Jewish leaders had not criticised other national leaders when they called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but they criticised him for it.
Even though other national leaders such as Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham had called for a ceasefire a few days before Khan had done so.
The usual extremists on X such as Joseph Cohen and Stephen Pollard were quick to pile-on Khan:
Burnham called for a ceasefire before Khan did:
Chief Rabbi Mirvis only called out Khan:
All the people I have seen criticise Khan on X for calling out this double standards have been people who I know are Jewish – if you ask them is it OK for people to hold Jewish people to a different standard than others, they would say no, and claim it is antisemitic to do so – then why do they think it is OK for Sadiq Khan to be held to a different standard to them, and why would Mirvis only call out Khan and not Burnham? It’d be quite reasonable to assume it is because they are all potentially Islamophobic. That is all that Khan was inferring.
It is worth noting, when Khan was elected Mayor in 2016, the very first event he did was to attend Yom HaShoah. Which is an event for personal Jewish grief about the Holocaust ā€“ it is specific to Jews, and separate to the Holocaust Memorial Day where people commemorate Holocausts across history from Rwanda to Darfur and elsewhere.
It is clear – no matter how hard Khan tries to prioritise and placate the Jewish community, they keep coming after him and holding him to a higher standard than they would themselves or anyone else who is not a Muslim – and that starts with Mirvis.
The fish rots from the head.
