The UK's Labor party suspended veteran member and former London mayor Ken Livingstone on Thursday after he was accused of anti-Semitism over remarks he made that Hitler had supported Zionism "before he went mad."

"Ken Livingstone has been suspended by the Labor Party, pending an investigation, for bringing the Party into disrepute," the British opposition party said in a statement according to the JPost on Thursday.

The former mayor of London accused the "Israel lobby" of executing a smear campaign against its critics by labeling them anti-Semitic, according to the Telegraph.

Livingstone, who served as London's mayor from 2000 to 2008, made the comments during an interview on BBC one day after Labor MP Naz Shah was suspended by the political faction for posting anti-Semitic tropes on social media.

“As I’ve said, I’ve never heard anybody say anything anti-Semitic, but there’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticizes Israeli policy as anti-Semitic," Livingstone said. "I had to put up with 35 years of this," he added.

Shah was suspended from the UK Labor party on Wednesday after it was discovered that in 2014 she posted offensive messages to Facebook which included a call to "relocate Israel to America."

The post published by Shah shows a graphic that suggests a "relocation" plan and is accompanied by the text "solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict." The graphic shows a map of the United States with an inlaid outline of Israel pictured in the middle of the North American country.

Source ; MENA