{"id":93851,"date":"2026-05-02T06:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/93851\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T06:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:11:08","slug":"tension-and-dissent-inside-the-green-partys-antisemitism-struggle-green-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/93851\/","title":{"rendered":"Tension and dissent: inside the Green party\u2019s antisemitism struggle | Green party"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Green party<\/a> member for more than 30 years, Elise Benjamin admits to bittersweet feelings even as fellow activists anticipate a historic breakthrough in next week\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

Benjamin was involved in drawing up the party\u2019s guidance on antisemitism, which she describes as comprehensive. But the former Green councillor in Oxford now wonders whether further guidance is needed: \u201cNow that we have such a large membership, I think there needs to be an urgent review of how to make our complaints process fit for purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the brink of power in some councils, particularly in London<\/a>, and with ambitions to eclipse Labour in the long term, the Greens have been wrestling for months with charges that antisemitism has taken root in their ranks.<\/p>\n

Green Party candidates and supporters at a photo call in London last month. Photograph: Guy Smallman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The level of scrutiny of comments by candidates and activists has increased since Zack Polanski<\/a>, who is Jewish, took over as leader of the Greens in England and Wales in September, with the party\u2019s membership almost quadrupling since then. But this week, with the elections just days away, the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green has brought the subject to new prominence.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, two Green candidates standing for Lambeth council in south London, one of the party\u2019s targets next week, were arrested<\/a> for allegedly stirring up racial hatred online with antisemitic posts.<\/p>\n

\u200bAnother Green candidate to be accused of antisemitism was Tina Ion, who is standing for Newcastle city council. She said this week that posts, including a call for \u201cevery single Zionist\u201d to be killed, were \u201cisolated fragments\u201d of her statements.<\/p>\n

Then Polanski himself became embroiled in a public spat with the head of the Metropolitan police after sharing an online post that questioned the level of force used by officers who tackled the Golders Green suspect. On Friday afternoon he apologised, saying he has \u201ca responsibility for lowering the temperature at a time of such tension\u201d.<\/p>\n

As with some other parties on the left, notably Labour, this in part reflects a longstanding debate about the definition of Zionism, the political movement whose supporters see it as the necessary struggle for a Jewish homeland, and whose critics see it as a colonial project that has inevitably led to the dispossession of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

But following the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, and Israel\u2019s near-levelling of Gaza in response, arguments within the Greens about the subject have played out publicly and privately in branch meetings, Zoom calls and other gatherings \u2013 reflecting a wider social tension over how Jewish people in the UK have experienced the fallout from Israel\u2019s assault.<\/p>\n

Elise Benjamin, former Green councillor: \u2018I\u2019ve had experiences where someone has been telling me where my family are from.\u2019 Photograph: Martin Godwin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Benjamin said: \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful for me as an older person to see the Greens enjoying the electoral success that we have all worked towards for so long but I also feel very conflicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have is a small but noisy core of people who are very, very loud on just one issue and not interested in, for example, our policies on transport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thousands of new members have joined the party since Polanski became leader on an \u201ceco populism\u201d platform, one that particularly attracted many who had been in Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.<\/p>\n

Membership in England<\/a> and Wales passed 200,000 in March after the Greens overturned a huge Labour majority in the Gorton and Denton byelection, and is now beyond 220,000.<\/p>\n

With that growth has come a repetition of the dynamic that vexed Corbyn\u2019s Labour party. To critics in both eras, support for Palestinian rights has sometimes been thoughtlessly muddled with generalised attacks that seem to apply to Jews writ large \u2013 or, worse, have acted as a disguise for straightforwardly bigoted views.<\/p>\n

Against that argument is the view of many of those whose support has shifted from Corbyn to Polanski: that the problem of antisemitism in their movements has been deliberately exaggerated by their enemies for political gain.<\/p>\n

They may point, for example, to news coverage such as a story in the Daily Mail<\/a> quoting members of Polanski\u2019s extended family saying he is \u201cthe leader of the future Islamic party of Britain\u201d and warning that the Greens are \u201cthe most antisemitic party in British history\u201d. Polanski said the people quoted in the piece were \u201crandom \u2018anon\u2019 relatives\u201d, and that those to whom he was closehad refused to talk to the newspaper.<\/p>\n

Polanski said in 2018 that he could not vote for Labour under Corbyn because of concerns about antisemitism as a Jewish voter. But in a recent interview<\/a> he said he had been deceived by \u201cthe cynical and systemic deliberate obfuscation of a really serious issue like antisemitism,\u201d adding: \u201cI think we need to take antisemitism really seriously, and I don\u2019t believe political weaponisation of it is the way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has also complained that some allegations of antisemitism have themselves presumed that Jewish people are bound to support Israel. Last year he accused the Campaign Against Antisemitism<\/a> of \u201cconflating being Jewish with the Israeli government\u201d.<\/p>\n

Long before this week, a series of cases had led to party suspensions. Mothin Ali, a Leeds councillor who last year became one of the party\u2019s two deputy leaders, and who symbolises the desertion of Labour by many Muslim voters since the conflict in Gaza, has been caught up in the controversy.<\/p>\n

On the day of the 7 October attack, he had said in remarks on social media that Palestinians had the right to \u201cfight back\u201d. In a separate video, a rabbi who went into hiding after receiving online threats because he had served with the Israel Defense Forces was described by Ali as a \u201ccreep\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the Greens, speaking at last autumn\u2019s party conference. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster\/Getty<\/p>\n

Ali later apologised \u201cfor the upset caused\u201d by his remarks, adding: \u201cI do not support violence on either side: violence leads to more violence and this is what I have tried to convey.\u201d But he also criticised what he called Islamophobic attacks against him.<\/p>\n

Since then, Ali has been associated with a more defiant reaction against what some in the Greens describe as a witch-hunt, reportedly telling a private meeting of the Greens for Palestine group that they needed to seek \u201cserious legal advice\u201d and put the \u201cparty on notice straight away\u201d over the handling of candidate suspensions.<\/p>\n

Among those claiming an unfair targeting of legitimate criticism of Israel is Lubna Speitan, a London-based British-Palestinian contemporary artist who was the co-author of a motion which she and others attempted to bring before the Greens\u2019 spring conference and would have designated Zionism as racism.<\/p>\n

Though it was kicked into touch by what Speitan regarded as filibustering, the motion could yet return at the Greens\u2019 autumn conference and looms in the background of the party\u2019s near-continual and often tortuously decentralised process of developing policy. Polanksi has expressed his support for the motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was one for the Palestinians, by the Palestinians, who are denied a voice in their own home,\u201d said Speitan, who had originally signed up to join Corbyn\u2019s Your Party after an exodus of leftwingers from Labour. \u201cWe had the input and support from Jewish, Christian and Muslim allies, and legal input, so that it became a united effort to call for liberation and equality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the motion was proposed, Speitan says it has come under attack by what she describes as \u201ca small but vocal group of Zionists in the party\u201d, a reference to the Jewish Greens.<\/p>\n

Critics of the motion say its logical consequence would be the proscription of those in the party who described themselves as Zionist, which Speitan does not push back on.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo form of racism should be tolerated,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the same way as I oppose antisemitism, I also oppose anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Muslim racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jewish Greens say they have about 170 members, adding that there are Jewish people in the Greens who are not in its group. They claim that repeated attempts to engage with the proposers of the motion have been rebuffed. This is rejected by Speitan, who cited full compliance with requirements to consult.<\/p>\n

Zack Polanski on the local election campaign trail in Manchester with Hannah Spencer, whose win in the Gorton and Denton byelection boosted party membership. Photograph: Anthony Devlin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

For Benjamin, the motion is part of a change in atmosphere. She likens the language used by others in the party to that of the far right: \u201cI\u2019ve had experiences where someone has been telling me where my family are from and questioning \u2013 in a way that has been quite aggressive \u2013 the origins of my DNA and the very basis of how I identify.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green MPs have been keeping their heads down on the issue, partly out of loyalty to a new leader but also because Polanski\u2019s mandate from members was so clear when he defeated Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns \u2013 two of the party\u2019s four MPs \u2013 by 20,411 to 3,705 votes in a ballot of party members.<\/p>\n

MPs contacted by the Guardian about the debate over antisemitism declined to respond or cited busy schedules.<\/p>\n

Most senior Greens, even those who had initial doubts about Polanski, are known to be largely supportive of him, acknowledging the surge in attention, membership and poll numbers that his media-friendly approach has brought. Some feel the party\u2019s willingness to describe Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza as a genocide has opened a space for bad-faith attacks from opponents, and believe voters will be sceptical about criticisms that they see as eliding the two subjects.<\/p>\n

But there have been some glimpses of dissent, albeit cryptic. After a long-serving Norfolk Green councillor quit in March \u2013 launching an attack on Polanski\u2019s focus on issues including Palestine, and claiming he was speaking as one of \u201ca very significant number of older, deeper Greens who are looking on in horror\u201d \u2013 Ramsay ventured on X that he was \u201cdeeply sorry\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a party we must adopt a strategy which unites long-term members & new supporters behind our core values,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Green party member for more than 30 years, Elise Benjamin admits to bittersweet feelings even as fellow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-93851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-israel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116503503414739478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93851","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=93851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}