I reported on Zack Polanski. His thin-skinned response was telling

I counted up how many times Zack directly tweeted at me, about me, or about the newspaper I wrote a story for about him and it came to 32 in the space of just 48 hours. It’s not like he had nothing else to do: this was the same weekend as the Greens’ Spring Conference.

Why was he so enraged? Because members of his family had told me of their fear of what the Green Party was becoming under his leadership. How it was becoming a vehicle for hatred towards the Jewish community. How if he became Prime Minister they would have to leave. And how they couldn’t understand how he, as a gay Jewish man, could be working with Islamic extremists who have infiltrated the party along the militant hard left and given it such a boost in the polls.

My goodness he was angry. First he accused me of “going after my family now”. When I explained I hadn’t gone after anyone, they had come to me, this really angered him. “Daily Mail and journalist?” he asked me. “Those words don't belong together with your parasitic behaviour. You try your daily nonsense – with a paper that literally backed the fascists – and the Green Party continue to rise.”

Oops! As many pointed out, it perhaps wasn’t a terribly good idea to call a Jewish journalist “parasitic”. The Nazis, after all, also called Jews parasites. Being accused of antisemitism got him all in a fluster.

Attacking someone for “parasitic behaviour” wasn’t the same as calling them a “parasite”, he insisted rather desperately. When I explained what a parasite is – and explained that while I was not a poisonous organism inhabiting a larger host, it might perhaps be a good way of describing how his party has become inhabited by hateful antizionists, he didn’t like that at all.

So then he got himself into more of a mess by claiming that he was "the only Jewish person to lead a political party” adding that it was the “third largest in the country” and that the “Daily Mail have been and always will be my enemy – they historically supported fascists and continue to do so. I’ll take no lectures from them on Antisemitism."

Online, people were quick to remind him that there have been at least five other Jewish leaders of political parties in British history, and he’s not even an MP.

By going through his various tweets, I see that he also railed against me from the stage of the “Together Alliance” march – the racist "anti racist” demo in London which didn’t invite any Jewish organisations which hadn’t disavowed Zionism and where people cheered for the Islamic Republic and “Palestinian resistance”.

He screamed out his priorities to the roaring crowds. First – yes first – was: "We must not give an inch to the Daily Mail, to the right-wing hacks, to the people that spread hate and division. We will defeat you.”

Hysterical and chilling at the same time.

Really this story started some time ago, at least a couple of years, when I was in an online group with someone who started telling me things about Polanski, and about his family, about his mum, his dad, his family in Israel. It turned out they were a relation. Over the years we talked about me writing something about Zack but there was always something else that came up.

In the meantime, separately, another relation got in touch with me on X. They were more circumspect about the family history, they were keen that their family did not get dragged into Zack’s mess, but wanted to express their deep concerns about the direction the party was going and how upset the family were.

Others in the Jewish community in London, Israel, and Manchester got in touch and told me the same stories about his life and his upbringing. A friend I was at the Daily Mail was in touch with a third family member who confirmed what I had been told. Some of the remaining Zionist Jews in the Green Party also reached out to me to say how worrying things had become.

When the Greens decided to debate the motion “Zionism is racism” at their spring conference, it seemed like the best time to do the story and as a freelancer I approached my friend at the Mail about it. By then, Zack had already been asked on television and radio whether that meant his own mother Ava – a stalwart Zionist who has been on several hostage demonstrations and marches against antisemitism – was a racist.

Zack, who was once a Zionist himself and even tried hard to get the Greens to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, stumbled as he attempted to walk the tight line of not labelling his own mother a racist and not annoying the antizionists in his party.

I reached out to the relatives. They told me of their fear for our community, for our future in this country and also for Zack himself. When I approached the Green Party for comment they told me that the “harassment [Zack] has received since being elected is patently antisemitic” adding ”reporting like this demeans the press and our democracy”. I explained to them that I was a Jewish journalist.

Ironically, it was not a big story in the Daily Mail’s print edition. It had good but not amazing numbers online. And then Zack started tweeting about it. And tweeting. And tweeting.

His tweets against me, the Mail and my story were amplified online by people with millions of followers who similarly attacked me for the story. They thought they were supporting him: actually they were helping to spread my article about him.

Meanwhile Zack’s frankly unhinged behaviour towards me showed even some of his fans a different side to the nicey-nicey, “peace and love” guy. This story has clearly hurt him because he knows it's true.

And there is a part of me that feels almost sorry for him. I believe he knows that Zionism is NOT racism, and I don’t think he wants the destruction of Israel that the motion (which will now be debated at their autumn conference) calls for, and deep down I think he understands it is a dangerous motion.

He’s on a train that he can’t get off: one that will hurt him, us and our entire country. But he isn’t brave enough to pull the brakes.