A Redbridge councillor has been temporarily suspended from his committee roles after offensive social media posts condemning Israel.
Independent councillor Kabir Mahmud was investigated by Redbridge Council over a string of anti-Israel messages he posted to politicians on X last year.
Cllr Mahmud, elected in 2022, has been suspended from the overview and scrutiny committee and policy development committees focused on safety and resources for three months.
He will also undergo “appropriate training,” the council says.
He was contacted for comment but did not respond in time for publication.
The Clayhall ward councillor called for Israel to be attacked with “more powerful rockets” in November and swore at US government officials, according to council documents.
The month prior, former US secretary of state Anthony Blinken condemned what he had called antisemitic remarks at a football game between Ajax and Tel Aviv in Amsterdam.
In response, Cllr Mahmud called him a Zionist and said it was "not a long to go and for you to disappear [sic]".
Zionism is a western movement that seeks to establish, and now maintain, a Jewish nation in what is now the state of Israel.
Scrutiny of Israel has heightened in the wake of its war against Hamas, which governs the polity of Gaza, that has seen more than 65,000 Gazans killed since October 2023 according to its health ministry.
The conflict followed an attack by Hamas on Israel which killed around 1,200 people.
In October last year, former US defence secretary Lloyd Austin – who is black – said on X he had met with Israel’s former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, to discuss recent strikes on Iran.
Cllr Mahmud swore at him and said he had slavery "in his soul".
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During a council investigation into his behaviour, he said he was suffering through a period of stress and anxiety when he posted the messages, due to “severe back pain and seeing the level of atrocities that thousands of children are being killed”.
He said: “I subsequently used the language which I shouldn’t have used to express my opinion.
“I could have put it in a better way, and because of the stress and anxiety, this affected my judgement to use the appropriate language.
“I did not think at that time [the posts] would cause any offence to anyone, because it is not directed to any ethnic group – it’s just directed to a particular individual who [was] openly aiding this right to carry out atrocities.”
He said he “very much regretted using such foul language” and had deleted his posts.
Despite Cllr Mahmud’s defence, the council found that his posts had been discriminatory.
The council says Cllr Mahmud is entitled to hold and express his political views, but his use of language in a public forum was unacceptable.
The standards hearing subcommittee found he had breached the councillors’ code of conduct by posting from his official public account and through the extremity of the language used.
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