Anti-prejudice organization the Anne Frank Trust said in a Thursday statement that it had failed to properly vet a speaker who justified Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and claimed that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
The Anne Frank Trust had invited Nasima Begum to lead a storytelling workshop despite the fact that she had made inflammatory social media posts about a decade ago.
Begum claimed that Jewish people are committing genocide against Palestinians, comparing the treatment of Palestinians by Israel to the treatment of Jews by Nazi Germany.
"What's sad is that the Jewish population faced genocide themselves in Hitler's Germany but they've implemented the same on Palestine for years," Begum tweeted in 2011, according to a Jerusalem Post report last week.
Moreover, during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, Begum justified Hamas rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians, stating that "exiling a people from their own land justifies anything. It's the Holocaust all over again except this time it's innocent Palestinians and ironically the perpetrators are you Zionist scum."
Apology
"Education to end antisemitism has been at the heart of our work for over 30 years and we remain as committed to this as ever."
Anne Frank Trust statement
The trust on Thursday published a statement apologizing to the Jewish community for its decision to host Begum, describing it as "a failure in due diligence."
We apologise unreservedly for the offence caused, especially to the Jewish community, by a workshop we ran last week. See our statement here, which includes the steps we’re taking as a result: https://t.co/VfvSb7jKSY
— Anne Frank Trust (@AnneFrankTrust) July 21, 2022
The trust said that it had only learned of Begum's comments on July 16, that it had deleted posts from its account about the workshop after the fact and that it was taking steps to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.
"In response, we are introducing a new Due Diligence Policy and Procedure," the statement read. "We are also making improvements to our operational planning so that events are organized in a more timely manner."
"Education to end antisemitism has been at the heart of our work for over 30 years and we remain as committed to this as ever."
About Anne Frank
Anne Frank was a Jewish girl living in the Netherlands who was murdered by the Nazis at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. She gained international fame after her diary describing her experiences during the Holocaust was posthumously published.
Michael Starr contributed to this report.