Hackney Green council meeting where Jews were told they must condemn the ‘genocide’ to fight antisemitism

There was a queue to get into the council chamber; there wasn’t room for everyone at this historic first full session since the Greens had leapt from just two councillors to an overwhelming majority of 42 out of a total of 67 in the May elections. Apart from a brief period without overall control from 1998-2002, Hackney has always been a Labour council.

The Green councillors filed in giddy with excitement. More than half were wearing keffiyehs in a variety of colours. Some had been protesting outside, still getting to grips with the idea that they are no longer fighting the establishment.

Sitting across from them were the six Tory councillors who represent Hackney’s Charedi majority wards. One of them, Simche Steinberger, was wearing a Tottenham football shirt and a kippah.

There were introductions: Mayor Zoe Garbett is directly elected and the most powerful of all the council officials. She was given eight minutes and started well: council house roof repairs are being done with drones, the cost of living crisis, and even a mention of the climate.

Then came the key part of her address. “We are urgently addressing this council’s complicity in a humanitarian crisis,” she said.

“Given that crisis and a UN commission concluding that Israel has committed genocide, we have made progress with divesting our pension funds by launching a review.

“And we are reviewing our international links, including a proposal to end our twinning agreement with the military port city of Haifa in Israel.

“This is about who we are as a council, what we condone, who we work with, and what that says about who we are.”

Addressing how the issue had aroused “passionate feelings” she thanked “everyone who’s been protesting outside the town hall”.

After some general council business the proceedings moved onto Haifa.

The city in northern Israel – home to the Bahai World Centre and with around 40,000 Arab residents – has been twinned with Hackney since 1968.

While divesting from pension funds which have anything to do with Israel – a manifesto promise – is going to prove extremely tricky in practice, detwinning from Haifa is a useful stick to throw to the antizionists.

Proposing the motion, Green councillor Sam Mathys started with the proclamation: “We are an antiracist party that stands for justice and hate in multiple forms and shapes. A party that stands in solidarity with the oppressed.”

Then she said: “The International Court of Justice found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide [a claim former ICJ president Joan Donoghue has said is wrong].”

And then, as her fellow Greens nodded in enthusiastic agreement, Mathys continued: “We want civic partnerships that are about fostering peace, justice and equality.

“The residents of Hackney, by voting for us overwhelmingly, gave us the mandate to move this detwinning from Haifa forward.”

For the Conservatives, Steinberger pointed to the left-wing politics of the city of Haifa and added: “We were elected here for local reasons, not for national reasons.” A cheer went up from the public gallery.

He also said: “To be honest, if I was Haifa, I'd be ashamed to twin with Hackney in such a current situation. It's a disgrace, and it's not asked for.”

Labour’s Ben Lucas, decried the “devastation and violence in Gaza caused by the Israeli government” and also his party “utterly condemn the Hamas terrorist attacks”.

As for the proposed detwinning, he said: “This is a performative gesture that will only inflame community tensions.”

All the Greens in their keffiyehs bristled. Then they brought out their two trump cards. One councillor, Manal Masala, was introduced as the “daughter of Nakba survivors” and spoke over an internet connection that kept breaking down. “As we gather here this evening, the genocide in Gaza continues,” she intoned. “And violence against defenceless Palestinians in the West Bank is intensifying.” There was a roar of approval.

And then came the pièce de résistance: Green councillor Florence Schechter repeatedly cited her Jewish identity, and recalled how she had been called “to the bimah for my bat mitzvah to read the haftorah”.

She said Israel’s behaviour amounted to a “Chillul Hashem”, describing it without any sense of irony as “when one member of the group has acted poorly it reflects on the whole group”.

She then insisted: “If the Jewish people of Britain want to fight rising antisemitism, the first thing they must do is condemn the genocide in Palestine.”

There was another roar of approval, from the public gallery, while downstairs her fellow Green councillors were on their feet applauding.

Steinberger was given the last word and he seemed stunned, almost lost for words.

“This is a shame, a shame,” he repeated, shaking his head.

A vote was taken and the Green hands went up in unison. Now it will go through the performance of an official report, a request for a response from Haifa’s mayor, before a majority Green committee have the final say, surely to wave it through.

It will make no difference on the ground for the people of Haifa. Or for the Palestinians.

But for most Jews in the room – except perhaps Schechter – it heralded an unwelcome landmark for British Jews.

This was the moment when a room full of people who have no doubt of the goodness of their intentions and now run the council with Britain’s second-biggest Jewish population applauded the condemnation of any Jew who dares to hold the wrong opinion.