in another interview<\/a> that he had been wrong to previously criticise Jeremy Corbyn for not properly dealing with antisemitism as Labour leader, and that the issue had been weaponised at the time.<\/p>\nAsked about the latter remarks on a campaign visit to Glasgow on Friday, Polanski \u2013 who leads the Greens in England and Wales but was helping the Scottish Greens\u2019 campaign \u2013 said: \u201cIn terms of the weaponisation, it\u2019s important to have absolute clarity that antisemitism definitely exists, and sometimes people will say things that are antisemitic.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, I\u2019ve seen reports in the press of things that people have supposedly said that are antisemitic that absolutely aren\u2019t antisemitic. They are pro-Palestinian. And they are very, very different things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polanski added: \u201cWhen people create false allegations of antisemitism, or blur the lines between challenging the Israeli government and antisemitism, as a Jewish person, that makes me feel a lot less safe. That makes me feel like I\u2019m being held accountable for a country that I don\u2019t believe has anything to do with my Jewish identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He accused Starmer of \u201cplaying silly games with a really serious issue\u201d, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s incumbent on all politicians, particularly the prime minister at this point, to treat antisemitism with the consideration and care and nuance that a really serious issue requires.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe\u2019ve got into a bizarre situation in this country where a non-Jewish prime minister is attacking the one Jewish leader on a case of antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n
On reports about comments by Green candidates, Polanski stressed the need for \u201cperspective\u201d over what he called a \u201chandful\u201d of accusations among 4,500 people standing for the party in local elections across England and Wales.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThat being said, we know that there\u2019s a worrying rise of antisemitism in this country as, by the way, there is a rise of Islamophobia and hate crime generally. And so it\u2019s really important for anyone who\u2019s in public life, and certainly a leader of political party, so they take that seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polanski\u2019s comments about Labour under Corbyn have prompted accusations of complacency in the Greens about antisemitism within the party. The number of members has almost quadrupled since he became leader in September.<\/p>\n
Many of the accusations centre on Gaza. Several Green candidates have posted comments that appear to sympathise with the Hamas attack on Israel, question the right of Israel to exist, or raise tropes about the supposed global influence of Israel and Jewish people more generally.<\/p>\n
Some Green officials concede that the party\u2019s highly decentralised structure can make it difficult to keep control of what members say. Vetting is still carried out by local parties, and there is at least one example of someone suspended as a general election candidate reappearing on the list for the elections on 7 May.<\/p>\n
There is a similar lack of central control over policy motions submitted to the party\u2019s conferences, including one put forward to the most recent event in March, which proposed that \u201cZionism is racism\u201d.<\/p>\n
One senior Green member said the sheer size of the party made its existing structures, based on direct member participation, open to abuse. \u201cYou can\u2019t have direct democracy with 220,000 members,\u201d they said. \u201cThe new members are a real mix, but some of them are very clearly single-issue Palestine activists who want to push an anti-Israel agenda to the exclusion of anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The party says that internal procedures are being beefed up, with a particular focus on antisemitism. \u201cThere are people meeting on a daily basis discussing this issue. It is not being ignored,\u201d one official said. \u201cBut we have expanded so quickly, and we are fielding a record number of candidates, and so are catching up to an extent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cZionism is racism\u201d motion was blocked at the March event, but is due to be debated at the conference in autumn.<\/p>\n
Asked about the motion, Polanski said: \u201cThe way our members can vote on policy is a really important democratic principle. I also think the motion is a distraction [from what is going on in Gaza].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zack Polanski has called on politicians to treat antisemitism with \u201cconsideration, care and nuance\u201d as he accused Keir…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-549115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}