Ealing Council Denies Employing Hamas-supporting Teacher
Latifa Abouchakra claimed to have worked for the borough for 8 years
Latifa Abouchakra from her video hailing the Hamas attack. Picture: Instagram
October 26, 2023
Ealing Council has issued a statement denying it ever employed a woman who posted a video in support of Hamas after the 7 October attack on Israel which included an assault on a music festival during which hundreds of young people died.
In the clip published on her Instagram page an exultant Latifa Abouchakra says, “Nothing will ever be able to take back this moment of triumph, this moment of resistance, this moment of surprise, this moment of humiliation on behalf of the Zionist entity.”
The footage emerged after she was interviewed on ITV about her experiences of Islamophobia as a British Palestinian woman living in the UK. She said she had been called a terrorist by strangers passing her in the street.
The television company was forced to apologise after it was informed that she worked for the Iranian propaganda channel Press TV on the Palestine Declassifed programme.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said that the failure to check her background was constituted ‘staggering failures of due diligence'.
At the time of the interview Ms Abouchakra had stated on her LinkedIn profile that she had worked as a teacher for Ealing Council for eight years after obtaining a Post Graduate Certificate of Education from University College London.
This was subsequently amended to remove the reference to her employment history with Ealing Council although she continued to describe herself as a Citizenship and PSHE teacher.
In May 2021, the Campaign Against Antisemitism had made a complaint against Ms Abouchakra for remarks she made to the Teaching Regulation Agency who they said was working in Ealing as well as being an official of the National Education Union. The outcome of the complaint is not known but Ms Abouchakra has removed a reference to being an International Office for Ealing for the National Union of Teachers from April 2018 to the present. The National Union of Teachers was merged into the National Education Union in 2017.
When the matter was brought to the attention of Ealing Council it issued a statement saying, “Latifa Abouchakra is not and has never been an Ealing Council employee. We want to be absolutely and unequivocally clear that she does not speak for or represent the views of the council in any matter.”
We have contacted Ms Abouchakra to ask for clarification on her employment history.
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