Members of the Green Party said they would “plough into a group” of Israelis and discussed “wiping Israel off the map” and “killing Zionists”.
In leaked WhatsApp messages first reported by the Times, activists from Zack Polanski’s party discussed committing acts of violence against Israelis and Zionists.
In one message, a member said they understood the urge to “plough into” a group of Israelis.
Another said being an antizionist “could mean that you support killing Zionists” and it was not surprising that some antizionists are also “anti Jews”.
In the message sent earlier this month, one member of the private group chat, titled Greens Against Imperialism, wrote: “I suppose an extreme antizionist could mean that you support killing Zionists.
“But that is not specifically racist any more than believing in capital punishment for traitors or "terrorists" is. Wrong but not necessarily racist imv [in my view].
“Considering the genocide it is not surprising some anti Zionists particularly those living in, or having relatives in Palestine, are anti Jews, lumping all Jews in with the majority of Israeli Jews as Genociders. Wrong but understandable. People of every belief can also be racist even pacifists and environmentalists.”
Another participant said: “I can tell you if a state in the name of an ethnic group destroyed my village and killed my family, I might want to plough into a group of them too.”
The WhatsApp group was established by Sophus Magill, a Green parish councillor in Wootton Bridge on the Isle of Wight, who previously distributed a document warning against the proscription of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
During an online exchange in July, Magill wrote: “Zionism has to go, it’s ultimately an apartheidal, ethno-supremacist ideology [sic]. The only solution is one equal state.”
When another group member asked whether that meant wanting Israel “wiped off the map, in essence?”, Magill replied: “Yes, I would like that.”
He said he did not think it was violent to want “an illegitimate apartheid state gone from all maps”, comparing Israel to Rhodesia.
He added that “Isreali [sic] citizens who are not war criminals and who agree to peacefully coexist with Palestinians” could remain in a new Palestine “as everyone should have the right to live wherever they want in the world so long as they are not a threat to the safety of others”.
In another exchange in June, a different participant said Jews in the UK were a “weapon” of the Israeli state.
“I think a lot of British Jews have been heavily exposed to the propoganda [sic],” they said.
“British Jews are a brilliant weapon for the Israeli state to help with the use of antisemitism as a justification in the UK…,” the member went on.
The JC previously revealed that a member of the chat described the IRGC as “the main force defending the peoples of Iran” as participants discussed ways to block the government’s National Security Bill.
The leak has prompted horror from the government’s former extremism tsar, who said the messages put British Jews in “danger of attack”.
Lord Walney, previously the Labour and then Independent MP for Barrow and Furness, said: “This sinister justification of political violence from Green Party activists puts British Jews in increased danger of attack, and highlights the virulent antisemitism infecting much of the so-called progressive left in the UK.
“If the Green Party continues to deny the extremism they are stoking, they should be treated in the same way as far-right parties who excuse or promote violence.”
Labour MP for Hemel Hempstead David Taylor said the “sickening” comments “just go to show how extreme the Green Party has become” and called for the party to expel members involved in the messages and report them to the police.
A Green Party spokesperson said: “We do not comment on internal party forums or discussions on WhatsApp groups that are not official party group channels.
“As understood, the Green Party will be following its usual processes. Previously, investigations have been held where members have expressed views that don’t fit in with the party’s values.”
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