Zoe Daniel apologises over comments about Israel

Independent candidate for Goldstein Zoe Daniel has apologised after controversial comments considered offensive to the Jewish community surfaced from her campaign.

Independent candidate for Goldstein Zoe Daniel has apologised after a series of controversial comments surfaced from her campaign which were considered offensive to the Jewish community.

Last week, The Australian reported that Ms Daniel’s campaign manager, Sue Barrett, sent an inflammatory tweet about the Prime Minister in 2020.

Ms Barrett wrote that: “Hitler altered reality with drugs & Morrison uses religion”.

A year earlier, Ms Barrett said on social media that “the Jewish right-wing lobby group should simply shut up. Palestine is an open-air prison.”

Those comments were made after Jewish advocates described Labor politician Melissa Parke as extreme and divisive.

Goldstein independent candidate Zoe Daniel says evoking the Holocaust to score political points is unacceptable.

Ms Parke had been an outspoken defender of Palestine and a supporter of an economic boycott of Israel.

It was also revealed Ms Daniel, a former ABC journalist, signed an open letter which accused “Israel of unleashing a “brutal war against the besieged population of Gaza”.

In a 2017 ABC article, the Goldstein candidate also said then-US president Donald Trump declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as a means of “satisfying his wealthy Jewish donors”.

But Ms Daniel said evoking the Holocaust to score a political point was unacceptable. “When the Holocaust is misused and weaponised to score points in an argument, we devalue this horrific event and cause great pain to Holocaust survivors and their descendants.” she said in a written statement.