UK MP Shockat Adam is facing backlash after describing the Israeli army’s “blood-soaked tentacles” during a parliamentary address on Wednesday.
Adam, an independent ophthalmologist and businessman from Malawi, made the remark as Prime Minister Keir Starmer got ready to receive the Israeli president and the British Parliament debated Israel's attacks on Hamas leadership in the Qatari city of Doha.
According to Adam, his niece and her small daughter were at a library a few blocks away from where the Qatar strike occurred.
“After having witnessed the Israeli army massacre over 60,000 people in Gaza, 19,000 of whom are children, the blood-soaked tentacles of the Israeli army are now reaching closer to home, especially in my case,”
said Adam, a longtime critic of Israel who decried the British government decision this week not to call Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide.”
ome criticized his wording, claiming he was repeating antisemitic clichés about Jewish power that had been around for a long time. Octopuses have frequently appeared in antisemitic iconography, such as Nazi propaganda.
“I'm pretty sure this country, including my grandparents, fought a war so that Nazis didn't end up in Parliament,”
tweeted Jewish right-wing political analyst Josh Howie.
On the floor of Parliament, where the antisemitic symbol has been the subject of a prior debate, Adam did not get a scolding. After learning of the language's antisemitic origins, British MP Martin Linton apologized for warning voters against the "long tentacles of Israel" in 2010.
On the same day that Israeli President Isaac Herzog was in London for a meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Adam promptly responded to criticism of his speech. Adam had demanded that Starmer deny Herzog's visa.
If Israel does not agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, Starmer has stated that Britain would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly this month. Critics of Israel were enraged when U.K. officials explicitly said before to the visit that they had not come to the conclusion that genocide was occurring in Gaza.
“As Israel prepares a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza [City], Starmer welcomes its president to Downing Street with open arms,” he wrote in a post on X. “
History will judge this as the UK’s most shameful chapter of complicity.”
Following their meeting, Herzog and Starmer did not appear in public. According to Herzog, the meeting included "tough" conversation.
“Things were said that were tough and strong, and clearly we can argue, because when allies meet, they can argue,”
he said.
“We are both democracies.”
How have UK party leaders responded to his remarks?
Leaders and members have condemned Adam's language as inflammatory and damaging to community cohesion. Many from the Conservative benches described his comments as "unacceptable" and harmful to the UK's diplomatic relations with Israel.
Despite Adam being a Labour MP, some senior Labour figures expressed discomfort with the extreme language, urging MPs to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict responsibly without incendiary rhetoric. However, there was also internal division, with some on the Labour left supportive of Adam's strong pro-Palestinian stance.
These parties criticized Adam's comments for escalating tensions unnecessarily, emphasizing the need for respectful discourse and advocating for peaceful conflict resolution.