UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski came second in the by-election for the London parliamentary seat of Holborn and St Pancras, vacated following the departure of former Prime Minister Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n
Polanski finished well behind Labour candidate Saeeda Ahmed-Wali, who won the seat.<\/p>\n
The election took place days after the Green Party approved a motion at its conference describing Zionism as \u201ca form of racism.” Polanski abstained from the vote.<\/p>\n
After the results were announced, Polanski, who is Jewish, publicly addressed his party\u2019s decision and his own views on Zionism for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up in a Zionist household, and I grew up with the idea that this was a land without a people for a people without a land,” he said. \u201cAnd as I became more educated, learned and discovered things, I came to the conclusion that I don’t believe that’s true. And what we are seeing now is an ongoing genocide and the displacement of the Palestinian people from their homes. I believe that is unequivocally racist.”<\/p>\n
Asked whether he supports a two-state solution, Polanski said he did not believe it was for the Green Party to decide what a future arrangement should look like. He stressed that every country should guarantee equal rights and protect human rights, regardless of faith or religion.<\/p>\n
Polanski also addressed concerns raised by members of the Jewish community following his party\u2019s decision, as well as allegations that the motion was antisemitic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we always need to make sure that we’re not conflating antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel,” he said.<\/p>\n
He argued that blurring the distinction between antisemitism and criticism of Israel could undermine the security of Jewish communities.<\/p>\n
Despite his electoral defeat, Polanski made clear that he has no intention of stepping down as Green Party leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski came second in the by-election for the London parliamentary seat of Holborn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[46517,14607,5328,27985,37,688,811],"class_list":["post-323313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-andy-burnham","tag-anti-israel","tag-britain","tag-green-party","tag-israel","tag-keir-starmer","tag-uk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117410755240182748","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}