The Green Party has put forward a local election candidate who they previously dropped after he suggested Israel may have paid Hamas to commit the October 7 attack.
Joe Belcher, who is standing for the Rushall-Shelfield seat in the town, was suspended by the party and blocked from running as MP for the West Midlands seat of Aldridge-Brownhills in the 2024 general election.
This came after a series of anti-Israel social media posts came to light including a post from November 2024 in which Belcher questioned why Hamas would have “sold their people down the river” by attacking Israel.
"Why would Hamas commanders order October 7 to then have their territory destroyed and their people killed or displaced from Gaza?” he asked.
“For money? If so, who offered them this money? The Israel government?”
Belcher continued: “It's certainly convenient now that Israel can attempt to justify wiping out Palestinians from Gaza and to claim Gaza as Israel.
“Why would they do that? To claim rights over the oil and gas reserves in Gazan waters and to clear the way to create the Ben Gurion Canal through Gaza?”
The suggestion that a canal could be dug between the Gulf of Arabia and the Mediterranean Sea to serve as an alternative to the Suez Canal was suggested in a policy paper produced for the US Department of Energy in 1963.
In a separate message posted in 2023, shortly after the attack, Belcher wrote: “My hunch is that the October 7 attack was paid for by Netanyahu and/or the West. In order to wipe out Gaza to claim Gaza along with Gazan waters as Israel’s.
“Gazan waters hold billions of dollars worth of oil and gas.”
In a further post he added: “My hunch is the leaders of Israel, and Gaza conspired to carry out what happened on October 7 for financial gain. But I don't have any proof. This is why it remains a hunch and nothing more.”
In a separate post uncovered by the Daily Mail, Belcher shared a post claiming that Isis had been run by a Mossad agent.
In another X post, Belcher shared a video titled, “Louis Farrakhan Exposes Rothschild Bankers”.
Farrakhan, the leader of Muslim sect, The Nation of Islam, has repeatedly expressed virulent antisemitism.
The Green Party’s 2024 decision to drop Belcher came after three other candidates had been blocked over what the party’s then co-leader Adrian Ramsay called “inappropriate comments”.
Speaking with journalist Laura Kunessberg, Ramsay was questioned over how his party had dealt with “antisemitic comments” made by a number of candidates.
Ramsey replied that the party “takes any suggestions of antisemitism, or indeed any form of racism, very seriously” and that “any suggestions that have been made of inappropriate comments in recent weeks are being investigated by the relevant people”.
Ramsay and co-leader Carla Denyer were succeeded by Zack Polanski in September 2025.
The Green Party has been contacted for comment.
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