Zack Polanski has rejected calls for a focus on antisemitism within Britain’s Muslim communities, disagreeing with two prominent British Muslims.
The Green Party leader, who is Jewish, was being interviewed on Sky News by broadcaster Trevor Phillips on Sunday. Phillips also challenged Polanski over comments that he’d made the previous week that British Jews had a “perception of unsafety”.
During the interview, Phillips raised comments by Fiaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), who wrote in the Telegraph: “We have heard Sir Keir Starmer speak about the scourge of antisemitism, and the need for communities to stand with Britain’s Jews. I applaud and commend him for these public calls. However, have you ever heard Starmer speak about the other elephant in the room? The giant one that has ‘Muslim antisemitism’ written across it?”
He continued: “Whilst the vast majority of Muslims are an asset to our country, unless we have a root and branch rejection of Muslim antisemitism, calls for commiserations with British Jews are futile. Jews deserve much better than that; they deserve the truth.”
Asked if he agreed with Mughal’s calls, Polanski said he thought “blaming an entire community” was the “opposite of what we should be doing”.
Phillips retorted that :”he's not blaming an entire community. He is referring to Muslim antisemitism … he says, unless we recognise that calls for commiserations with British Jews are futile. … Do you agree with him?”
To which the Green Party leader replied: “I think what we need to do right now is de-escalate tensions. I think we need interfaith work. I think we need to bring people together. That sounds like the opposite of that”.
Phillips then raised comments in the Times by Baroness Falkner, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who is a Muslim, born in Pakistan. She wrote a piece decrying the indifference and silence of some British Muslims to the plight of British Jews.
“To their shame, and mine, many Muslims in Britain appear entirely alienated from the plight of Jews when attacked. This silence speaks volumes”.
Polanski then said that her comments were “inflammatory”.
“I think some of the work that I'm proudest of when I see in London is when imams and rabbis stand together side by side and say that attack on one is an attack on all and together, Jewish and Muslim people will stand in solidarity. I think that's the sort of leadership that we need right now, people standing up and working together in unity, not reaping further division”, he added.
During the interview, Polanski also said he vehemently disagreed with members of the Jewish community who said they felt unsafe as a result of pro-Palestine marches.
“As a Jewish person who marches with many Jewish people against the occupation in Palestine, when people say that makes them feel unsafe, that's a distortion of what the march is”, he said.
Phillips then challenges Polanski that his rejection of the view of other Jews who do view the marches – several of which have had antisemitic banners displayed on them and feature chants such as “globalise the intifada or from the river to the sea – could amount to a rejection of the very principles of hate crimes.
According to the police and CPS’s definition for identifying hate crimes: "Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person's disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity."
Polanski replied: “If hate crimes are being committed on the marches, then those should be dealt with, and there's already laws for those. As I said, on those marches, I've not seen hate crimes, and I think it's an outrageous slur on many, many people who are marching for peace”.
Meanwhile, Sarah Sackman, the justice minister and MP for Finchley and Golders Green, slammed the lack of solidarity being offered to British Jews in the wake the wave of antisemitic attacks.
Sackman, who is Jewish, told the Times: “For a minority community to come under this sort of sustained level of threat and attack purely for our identity, you would expect in the normal run of things for anti-racist organisations, for trade unions, for cultural leaders to speak out.
“I think what has been notable is, for some time now, a lack of vocal solidarity from the moderate majority. You would expect our anti-racist movement, who quite rightly come out vocally, regularly for other minoritised communities to have responded in kind.
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