Over the past couple of days, Labour councillor Peymana Assad has appeared on the BBC, Sky News, and Channel 4 to discuss her experiences in Afghanistan. Of course, Assad is perfectly within her right to do this, it’s just incumbent upon broadcasters to be explicit about the context of their guests’ politics for the sake of transparency. All three broadcasters should be commended, rightly, for mentioning Assad’s role as a Labour councillor, though none made reference to one particular detail from her past…
Back in 2019, Guido revealed that Assad had once claimed she would “100% take up arms against the government and its allies” if she were an Afghan villager. The Afghan government’s allies at the time were, of course, the US and the UK. Still, Guido is pleased to see that his campaign to get political activists identified as such during media appearances is picking up steam…
Labour’s Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner candidate Peymana Assad is in hot water after social media posts surfaced of her saying she would “100% take up arms against the [Afghan] government and its allies” which at the time included the US and the UK. Now Jewish people are questioning an oddly worded tweet from Peymana, which talks about a “10 lost tribes of Israel joke” and a man who “got gassed”. She has now deleted her Facebook account, you have to wonder why?
UPDATE: After her Tweet came to light yesterday, Peymana offered an apology:
I used the word ‘gassed’ in a tweet in 2012 in the sense of the common slang term for being happy and excited. It didn’t occur to me at all that it would have other connotations and I’m completely mortified that I didn’t realise this. I unreservedly apologise.
A man came up to me and asked me if I was Israeli. I’m used to people asking where I’m from and assuming that I’m not from Britain. I said I was Afghan but that there’s a theory that Afghans descend from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, we laughed about it being a kind of strange theory that’s never been proved. He was really intrigued by it and said he’d look it up when he got home.
I’ve been outspoken against any pro-Palestinian campaigners blaming Jewish people for Israel’s actions and about antisemitism in our Party and calling out those who seek to deny and downplay it. A review of my twitter demonstrates this. I am absolutely committed to standing in solidarity with Jewish people and to fighting antisemitism. I recently tweeted in support of the Board of Deputies’ Ten Commitments and I will continue to promote them during the election.
She has now deleted her Twitter account, as well as her Facebook…
Voters know Corbyn poses a threat to national security, but Labour’s candidate in Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner has gone one step further, saying she would “100% take up arms” against British soldiers. Taking to Facebook four years ago in 2015 to vent her frustrations about the ongoing war in Afghanistan, Peymana Assad wrote:
If I was an Afghan villager… I would 100% take up arms against the government and its allies. The Kabuli elite wouldn’t understand that though”
And who were the Afghanistani’s allies at the time? The UK and the US…
When Guido showed David Simmonds, her Tory opponent, what she had written, he said understatedly “Crikey. There are no conceivable circumstances where I would ever take up arms to fight against British soldiers. My ancestors who died in World War II would be turning in their graves at the prospect.”
Ms Assad also complains that “it’s a shame that so many of us view the critique of the military as against national interests”. Not Corbyn, he would probably make her a Defence Minister…
