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British Greens battle antisemitism scandal as Jewish leader Zack Polanski targets historic gains in local elections
(JTA) — Britons heading to polls in local elections on Thursday will deliver an answer to the question of whether their country’s legacy parties still hold wide appeal.
They will also illuminate just how willing British voters are to overlook antisemitism accusations around a rising left-wing party party — and potentially propel its leader, a 43-year-old Jewish activist who describes himself as “certainly not a Zionist,” into the upper echelon of British politics.
If Zack Polanski delivers the gains to the Green Party’s local leadership that polls have indicated are possible, he will instantly become one of the most high-profile Jewish progressives in the world. But unlike Bernie Sanders, the Jewish U.S. senator who is a doyen of the global progressive movement, Polanski has from the start made pro-Palestinian politics a centerpiece of his party’s platform — a reflection of how the war in Gaza has reshaped politics, and a gateway for antisemitism allegations that have dogged the Greens ahead of the election.
Polanski has said that antisemitism is “completely unwelcome” in the party as accusations thronged dozens of candidates heading into elections. More than 30 candidates are being investigated in an internal party probe.
But Jewish leaders and politicians, as well as London’s top police officer and members of other parties, say Polanski has failed to act strongly enough and runs the risk of inflaming antisemitic sentiment as violence against British Jews surges. And even Jewish members of the Green Party — who are increasing in number — have objected to some of the party’s moves against Israel.
Two Greens candidates in London were arrested last week on suspicion of “stirring up racial hatred online,” according to Metropolitan Police. One of them, Sabine Mairey, said in a post, “Ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism, it’s revenge.” The other, Saiqa Ali, shared an image of an armed man wearing a Hamas headband with the slogan, “Resistance is freedom.”
The party also recently dropped support from Tina Ion, a candidate in Newcastle who said that “every single Zionist” should be killed on an account called “thereal.anne.frank.” Two other Newcastle candidates lost their endorsements just days before the elections. Philip Brookes posted that it “takes serious effort not to be a tiny bit antisemitic,” and Mohammed Suleman reposted a video claiming that Jews were willing to bury Soviet prisoners alive under Nazi instruction during World War II.
Polanski told the BBC on Wednesday that these messages were “unacceptable.” He said the party was ensuring a “standardized vetting process” and “compulsory training” for all candidates to “make it clear that antisemitism is completely unwelcome in the Green Party, as it is in society.”
He added, “It is also important to say one case of antisemitism is one too many. This is a handful of cases and actually we have over 4,500 candidates, the vast, vast majority of which are doing amazing work in their communities.”
The scandal comes as Labour is predicted to lose well over half of its 2,500 seats on English local councils, especially to the Greens in London and the right-wing Reform UK in northern England. The two formerly fringe parties have framed the local elections, which select officials who manage municipal services and affairs, as a referendum on legacy politics, a weak economy, poor public services and an unpopular leader in Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
While polls suggest that multiple parties will benefit from the losses by Labour, Starmer’s party, the Greens are being watched especially closely because of what their momentum could signal for the future of the British left.
Polanski is the most prominent Jewish critic of Israel in mainstream U.K. politics. He has called to end all arms sales, trade and diplomatic ties with Israel, and decried Starmer for complicity in what he says is “the very obvious genocide in Gaza.” His pro-Palestinian stance has taken center-stage in the Green Party’s platform, alongside the environment and affordability.
Polanski did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency made over several months.
Polanski frequently speaks about his pride in being Jewish, which he says led to his support for Palestinians. He said in a TikTok video last year, “When I speak out for Palestinians, I don’t do it in spite of my Judaism. I do it because of it. Because ‘never again’ for one group of people must actually mean ‘never again’ for anyone.”
Polanski is also a member of Na’amod, an organization of British Jews who say they seek “to end our community’s support for Israel’s occupation and apartheid.” He told The Guardian last year that “the most vicious” criticism in his political career came from “so-called mainstream Jewish communities,” which felt betrayed because he was “certainly not a Zionist.” (Polanski was blasted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the country’s largest group representing Jews, after he said that British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis did not represent most British Jews and instead spoke “in the interests of defending the Israeli government.”)
These views diverge sharply from his upbringing. Polanski has described his childhood in a “Zionist household” in Manchester, where he attended the Jewish school King David. He grew up as David Paulden with a mother who reportedly continues to identify as a Zionist.
At 18, he changed the anglicized name to the original name of his Jewish ancestors, who immigrated from Ukraine and dropped their name upon confronting antisemitism in the United Kingdom, he told the BBC in March. (Polanski said he changed his first name because of a negative experience with his stepfather, who was also named David.)
While promising to root out antisemitism from the Green Party, Polanski has said that some allegations “conflate genuine antisemitism with legitimate criticism of an Israeli government which is committing war crimes.”
The Greens face mounting scrutiny amid a wave of antisemitic attacks nationally, including the stabbing of two Jewish men in the London neighborhood of Golders Green last week and a string of arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites. In October, an attacker drove his car into people gathered outside a Manchester synagogue and fatally stabbed one man.
Polanski criticized the police for their use of force in detaining Essa Suleiman, the suspect charged with the Golders Green stabbings. His comments sank his approval ratings in recent days and prompted a swift rebuke from police chief Mark Rowley.
“London’s Jewish communities are scared. They have experienced a series of targeted attacks on the community, and they expect our officers to act, protect them. That is exactly what our officers did yesterday. Your decision to criticise these officers, using your public profile and reach will have a chilling effect,” Rowley wrote in an open letter to Polanski.
“Officers need to know that when they act to protect Londoners decisively, they will be supported. Officers know they must be accountable for their use of force and there are processes for this to happen,” he added. “Your use of your public profile to call their actions into question, hours after a terrorist incident is not the appropriate route.”
The episode sparked a fresh set of antisemitism allegations, this time targeting media treatment of Polanski. Times of London published a cartoon on Saturday that depicted a hooked-nose Polanski kicking one of the police officers, which Polanski called a “vile antisemitic caricature.” Other newspapers similarly published cartoons that elicited accusations of antisemitism.
Sharing, without comment, British newspapers’ depictions of the only Jewish person currently leading a UK political party .
Times. Mail. Telegraph. Sun. pic.twitter.com/F4J1kPaivQ
— Ben Phillips (@benphillips76) May 6, 2026
British Jews, who number close to 300,000, are a politically diverse group that has historically voted mainly for the center-right Conservatives and the center-left Labour. But their support for the two dominant parties fell sharply in recent years to less than 60% combined, according to a report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, reflecting both a broad shift in public opinion in Britain and particular concerns for Jewish voters during the war in Gaza.
Some British Jews turned to the pro-Israel Reform, with their support for the party rising from 3% in 2024 to 11% in 2025. But a stronger contingent of disaffected Jewish voters turned to the Green Party. By June 2025, nearly one in five British Jews said they backed the Greens, nine times the rate of the population as a whole, according to JPR. (This data, the latest on British Jewish voters, was compiled before Polanski became the party’s leader in September.)
At the same time, the way British Jews see Israel has fractured. A majority identify as Zionists, but that proportion fell from 72% in 2013 to 65% in 2024, according to Brendan McGeever, a sociologist and co-director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London, who analyzed JPR data. Meanwhile, the proportion who identified as anti-Zionists and non-Zionists reached 28% in 2024.
McGeever said this polarization reflected the Green Party’s surge with younger Jews, while many other Jews have taken deep offense at his statements about Israel and antisemitism.
“The communal ‘we’ that Jewish communal organizations have spoken about for the last several decades, that communal ‘we’ is now breaking down before our very eyes,” McGeever told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Jews are increasingly divided politically, especially over core issues such as Zionism and Israel.”
Polanski has fierce critics in the British Jewish establishment, such as Daniel Sugarman, deputy editor of the U.K.’s Jewish News and former public affairs director for the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Sugarman has said the “mainstream Jewish community is absolutely furious” with Polanski, whom he accused of “playing politics with the hatred that the Jewish community is regularly experiencing” and “gaslighting those who call it out.”
Zac Goldsmith, a Jewish member of the House of Lords in the Conservative Party, said last week that the Green Party was “one of the greatest threats to Jewish people in the UK.”
Polanski “offered up his Jewishness as a tool for mass laundering of antisemitism,” Goldsmith said on X. “He’s done so not because he is antisemitic, but because he is an opportunist and is tapping into a large and growing market.”
Even within the Greens, some Jews have balked at the strength of the party’s anti-Zionist sentiment. Polanski gave qualified support earlier this year to a party motion called “Zionism is racism,” saying he would back the resolution if its definition of “Zionism” was linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its actions in Gaza.
The Jewish Greens group urged their colleagues to vote against the motion. “This is not your run-of-the-mill motion opposing Israel’s actions (something that Jewish Greens would have no problem with), but something much more problematic that is likely to make Jews feel unwelcome in the Green Party,” they said in a statement.
Questions about defining antisemitism and opposition to Israel have plagued politicians across the spectrum, not least in the Labour government, which fought an antisemitism scandal of its own under former leader Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer has said there are “instances” when pro-Palestinian demonstrations could be banned, suggesting that protests and pro-Palestinian chants had a “cumulative effect” on British Jews.
The Greens have split from mainstream U.K. parties by adopting multiple definitions of antisemitism, including both the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. The former, which most parties use exclusively, has received backlash from the left for classifying some forms of Israel criticism as antisemitic.
Reactions to antisemitism allegations within the Green Party are mixed. Deputy leader Mothin Ali privately told the Greens for Palestine group that candidates who were accused of antisemitism should seek “serious legal advice” against their own party, The Times of London reported.
Other members have loudly condemned the incidents. Former party leader Caroline Lucas, the first elected Green MP, said on X that the recently resurfaced statements from Green candidates were “totally unacceptable & require immediate action.”
“There’s no place for antisemitism or any hate speech in the party. This is a society-wide problem & needs to be rooted out wherever it’s found,” said Lucas.
Meanwhile, as the election neared and online discourse about it escalated, new concerns continued to rear their heads. After the academic Harriet Bradley shared one of Polanski’s videos urging Brits to the polls this week, a Jewish member of the Labour Party tweeted that he recognized her.
Bradley was suspended from a Labour Party local seat in 2019 following antisemitism allegations over her social media posts and subsequently left the party. She was investigated by police over another post two years ago.
“When I organised @JewishLabour’s conference in 2024, we had to report this woman to the Police for threatening to bomb the venue,” wrote Jack Lubner, referring to an incident that was widely reported at the time. He added, “Why are these people attracted to the Green Party? Why does Polanski welcome their support?”
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Palestinian-American to challenge John Fetterman for Senate seat in 2028
(JTA) — Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American writer who has worked with anti-Zionists, is the first Democrat to challenge Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman in the 2028 primary.
Fetterman, who has faced sharp criticism from within the Democratic Party for his staunch support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, has yet to announce whether he plans to run in 2028. A defeat or retirement would remove one of the Democratic caucus’s most pro-Israel voices.
Moor, 42, enters the playing field with radically different positions on Israel, and on foreign policy in general, from those Fetterman has promoted. Claiming that the United States “funds wars based on corruption and lies and has turned its back on its own people,” Moor pledged on his campaign website to ensure “this never happens again.”
Moor, born in Gaza, moved as a child to Philadelphia, where he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard. He switched from finance to journalism, reporting in Beirut and Egypt for The Guardian and other outlets, and co-editing the book “After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine.” He also spent many years in Jordan, where he launched a peer-to-peer lending organization, before moving back to Philadelphia in 2021.
“A few years ago my birthplace was turned to rubble in a genocide funded by our tax dollars,” Moor stated, saying that this has occurred “with the support of politicians on both sides of the aisle who can’t find money for transit or removing asbestos from our schools.”
Moor, who has served on the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, has never held public office. He says he is determined to address corruption, affordability, foreign policy and constitutional authority, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported his candidacy.
Moor told the Inquirer that he was “not really running against Fetterman” but instead “running for the rule of law.” He acknowledged that he would face an “uphill battle” against Fetterman, who took office in January 2023.
Fetterman has irked some fellow Democrats by siding with Republicans on numerous issues, especially on Israel. He has also drawn praise from the pro-Israel community and Israel’s leadership. With Democrats securing a Senate majority of at least 54 seats, including two independents who caucus with the party, Democratic leadership will be less dependent on Fetterman’s vote when the new Congress convenes in January.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Palestinian-American to challenge John Fetterman for Senate seat in 2028 appeared first on The Forward.
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Northwestern launches civil rights investigation into club that banned pro-Israel group from its food festival
Northwestern University’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating a club that said it canceled its annual “Cultural Food Fest” after students objected to its initial inclusion of a pro-Israel student group.
Spoon University Northwestern, a student-run food magazine, wrote in an email to students that it was calling off its Nov. 6 food festival because of concerns about the participation of Wildcats for Israel, a club housed within Hillel that describes itself as focused on Israeli culture and society.
“There’s been a lot of disappointment expressed in and around Hillel today,” Michael Simon, executive director of Northwestern Hillel, told the Forward on Friday. “What should be an opportunity for connecting across differences and having really positive engagement got turned into a sort of political catfight.”
Students involved with Wildcats for Israel were initially “really excited” to participate in the fest, Simon said.
But amid student backlash, Spoon reversed course and disinvited Wildcats for Israel, Simon said. In a statement posted to Instagram, Spoon cited “the ongoing genocide in Gaza” to explain the group’s removal.
Yet even that exclusion was not enough for some student organizations. Northwestern’s Asian Pacific American Coalition; Alianza, the Latinx student alliance; and the Middle Eastern North African Student Association, issued a joint statement saying that they were withdrawing from the fest because of the original inclusion of Wildcats for Israel.
“A ‘culture’ born from the active land theft and genocide of Palestinians should not be recognized,” the student groups wrote on Instagram.
Spoon then cancelled the event altogether.
Now, Spoon’s status as an officially registered student organization has been frozen while the investigation into allegations of discrimination is being conducted, a Northwestern spokesperson wrote in an email to the Forward.
The investigation comes as Northwestern faces additional obligations to address and report allegations of antisemitism as part of its $75 million settlement with the Trump administration in November 2025. As part of the agreement, the university pledged that its Office of Civil Rights would publish annual reports with data about complaints of antisemitism, including investigative and disciplinary actions taken.
Spoon did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.
In its email to students, Spoon said Wildcats for Israel was removed because of its status as “a political action group, not a cultural organization.”
Simon pushed back on that characterization of the club. “They’re not engaged in political advocacy or political work, certainly not in their current iteration,” Simon said. “They’re really focused on doing cultural and educational programming, connecting with Israel and with the Israeli people.”
The idea that Wildcats for Israel is considered political, while other student organizations opposing Israel are not, “appears to be a real double standard,” Simon said.
Still, Simon said the cancellation did not prevent Wildcats for Israel from having its own cultural food event — inviting students to the Hillel building on Friday to talk about what had happened over slushies in two flavors popular in Israel, limonana and iced cafe.
“They’re really turning to a place of being in community and supporting one another,” Simon said.
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Israel’s love affair with Trump may be over – with no other suitor in sight
Israelis were among the few groups outside America who genuinely liked Donald Trump, and they had persuaded themselves that the feeling was mutual. Now, as the American president pledges to terminate military assistance and blames Israel’s unpopularity for the Republicans’ electoral humiliation, they are confronting the possibility that their greatest supposed friend may become one of their gravest strategic liabilities.
In a 2025 Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries, 69% of Israelis expressed confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. Israelis saw a champion where much of the democratic world saw a menace.
Israelis, who tend to be more direct and plainspoken than other Western societies, were less inclined to be scandalized by Trump’s personal shortcomings. But mainly it was policy that made him so popular: Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and cultivated a conspicuously warm relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his increasing toxicity around the world. Trump opposed Hamas and ultimately joined Israel in attacking the Iranian regime.
Still, warning signs were there – in the displays of U.S. dominance over decisions in the 2025 and 2026 Iran confrontations and in the Election Day announcement last week that Trump plans to terminate roughly $4 billion in annual military assistance to Israel this year.
The announcement threatened a cornerstone of Israeli security planning established under Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated a 10-year, $38 billion assistance agreement extending through 2028.
The precise legal and financial consequences remain uncertain, not least because Congress controls appropriations. But the political significance is unmistakable: The president whom Israelis regarded as their most dependable protector was proposing to dismantle an arrangement that even administrations regarded as unfriendly to Netanyahu had sustained.
Moreover, the aid is far more than a gift. Its greatest value is not financial but geopolitical: the unmistakable message to Israel’s enemies that Washington stands behind it.
As the dismal election results became clear, Vice President JD Vance highlighted a supposed demand among disaffected Republican voters to “change our relationship to Israel,” placing the alliance itself among the issues requiring political reassessment.
In Sunday’s 60 Minutes interview, Trump went further, identifying what he called a “great dislike” for Israel as one factor in the Republican electoral defeat.
Trump certainly has a point. A 2026 Pew survey found that 60% of Americans viewed Israel unfavorably, up from 42% in 2022, including 57% of Republicans under 50. Gallup found that, for the first time in its 25-year tracking, Americans were no longer more sympathetic to Israelis than Palestinians: 36% favored Israelis, compared with 41% for Palestinians. The longstanding bipartisan consensus is unraveling. Among younger Americans, the situation is even worse.
Whether the reason is a global propaganda campaign against Zionism, social media manipulation, Netanyahu and his noxious far-right allies, or Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank are almost beside the point – the collapse in Western and U.S. opinion is undeniable.
Trump also asserted that “those countries that we’ve protected” from Iran – meaning Israel – “wouldn’t exist” without the U.S. and “are going to pay us back any and all costs that we’ve had for the war,” which was another major surprise and mystery that caught Israelis off-guard.
Whether this implies a demand that Israel reimburse the United States, and for precisely what, remains unclear. What is clear is that Trump has begun discussing a relationship Israelis considered existential in the language of electoral liabilities and financial transactions.
Writing in Maariv on Monday, veteran Washington correspondent Shlomo Shamir reported that senior Washington commentators described Netanyahu as having become effectively persona non grata in Trump’s inner circle – and that Trump’s seeming affinity for Netanyahu was “more a media relationship than a genuine friendship.”
The change in atmosphere in Israel has been extraordinary.
On Monday, Israeli television seemed preoccupied with little beyond the coalition negotiations following Israel’s election and the growing fear that the country might lose its most important international relationship.
Appearing on Channel 13, I argued that another Netanyahu government would have faced economic sanctions from Europe and even serious discussion of an American weapons embargo. This provoked very little disagreement.
“Netanyahu put all his chips on Trump, and it’s falling apart,” observed anchor Daniel Zilberstein. “It wasn’t only him, but the entire system,” replied Omri Rolls, an expert in monitoring and countering anti-Israel propaganda. “We put all our attention on the United States. Europe, we’ve completely given up on. All over the world, important elements are simply not on Israel’s agenda.”
The alarm was loud and clear this week across the Israeli political and diplomatic establishment.
Tovah Herzl, a former Israeli diplomat who served in Washington as liaison to Congress, captured the predicament in the title of her article in Maariv: “Netanyahu Bet on Trump — and Israel Could Lose Far More Than Money.”
“Israelis are unaware of the depth of the hole into which the country has fallen,” wrote Yedidia Stern, a leading expert on Israel-U.S. relations, in Ynet. “The hourglass has been turned over: we have two years to regain the legitimacy that has been lost” before a Democrat potentially wins the White House.
Ashley Perry, a former senior Israeli government adviser, wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel must urgently start arguing its case – “consistently demonstrating what Americans gain” in intelligence cooperation, joint defense development, investment, trade and Israeli contributions to scientific and technological progress.
Beyond all that, there is a general understanding that Israel will need some real policy changes – for example, cracking down on Jewish extremists in the West Bank. And it will need to court the U.S. Democrats and the Europeans once more – as it did decades ago.
There is a grim lesson at play, and it has more to do with morality than ethics.
Israelis are people badly traumatized by the conflicts that implacable enemies have forced on them. Over the decades, however, they took some pride nonetheless in what they believed was a moral high ground. It’s safe to say this has eroded, at least somewhat.
In a reflection of that erosion, one of Trump’s greatest attractions to Israelis – sadly enough – was his indifference to Palestinian human rights, an issue that had long complicated Israel’s relations with more conventional Western leaders. Trump was clearly untroubled by the West Bank occupation, the expansion of settlements or the absence of a credible political horizon for millions of Palestinians. In February 2025, he even proposed removing Gaza’s Palestinian population in its entirety and placing the territory under American control, a scheme whose breathtaking implications seemed scarcely to concern him.
Many Israelis overlooked the dark aspects of such absurdities, seeing only evidence of exceptional friendship. They overlooked the possibility that a president so utterly uninterested in Palestinian rights might also prove indifferent to Israeli interests whenever they ceased to coincide with his own.
They celebrated his willingness to discard diplomatic conventions – or even basic human decency – when it worked in their favor. They are discovering now that sometimes cliches are true: What goes around comes around.
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