Zack Polanski: Green Party has an ‘obsession’ with Israel

Green Party leader Zack Polanski openly complained party members were “obsessive” in their condemnation of Israel, newly-leaked audio obtained by Jewish News reveals.

Polanski, 42, also admitted being left “deeply disappointed” as the Greens failed to back a motion at party conference that would have demonstrated an internal culture that was friendly and welcoming to Jewish people.

In the newly-unearthed interview, Polanski also criticised the former leaders of the Greens for failing to devote enough time to a debate on antisemitism at the party’s annual conference, as he pushed a motion recognising the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

“I’m deeply disappointed it was rejected,” Polanski said at the time. “I don’t think it’s a controversial motion.”

In an interview given to the tiny Kingston Green Radio online station in October 2018, Polanski said of the anti-Israel current within the party: “I would say it feels a bit obsessive at times.”

On the Greens’ failure to adopt a policy on antisemitism at that time, Polanski said: “I think in the future it would be absolutely shameful and incoherent not to have a policy on antisemitism.”

With the party then under the co-leadership of Siân Berry and Jonathan Bartley, members rejected a motion calling for the adoption of the IHRA definition.

Former Liberal Democrat member Polanski has become a staunch anti-Zionist as the current Green Party leader.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW (Green Party’s “obsession” with Israel from 12 minutes on)

His party is battling to win next month’s by-election in Gorton and Denton by openly trying to appeal to Muslim voters, with a hardline anti-Israel stance and claiming the government is “complicit” in a Gaza “genocide.”

But the leaked intervew reveals Polanski, born into a traditionally pro-Zionist family in north Manchester, held very different views on Israel himself as recently as 2018.

Assessing the anti-Israel mood within the Greens, he said at the time: “I think it’s important to stand up against Netanyahu—but I think it’s important to stand up against all oppression around the world.

“But it does seem that people get particularly angsty if they feel like you are removing their right to criticise Israel in particular.”

Speaking in the aftermath of the party’s 2018 annual conference in Bristol, Polanski, then a founding member of the Jewish Greens group, also expressed his disappointment at the party’s failure to pass a motion backing the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

He described the climate inside the Greens as being “very similar to the Labour Party” led by Jeremy Corbyn at that time, in regard to opposition to the IHRA definition.

At the conference, Polanski’s pro-IHRA motion was included in a debate that was allotted only 20 minutes on antisemitism.

He told the station: “I’m happy to criticise the Green Party… I think that any fair-minded person would look at the antisemitism debate and the time – 20 minutes – and say that isn’t a reasonable amount of time to have this debate. As such, my words were chaotic, quite toxic, quite heated. We put forward a definition—the IHRA definition—which also includes a clause to say that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel. From my point of view, saying Israel is a separate policy on that… that’s fine.”

Polanski also incorrectly suggested that the IHRA “is the law” before adding that his rejected motion was “very specifically saying that within the Green Party, this is a culture that is friendly to Jewish people, that’s inviting and welcoming, and we’re going to extend the same rights and principles to Jewish people as we would to Muslim people, Christian people, or people of any faith or none.”

Polanski then said he was going to personally rewrite his motion hoping it would pass at the conference held by the Greens the following spring.

Later in the interview, Polanski discussed the formation of the Jewish Greens group, which had the support of Larry Saunders, brother of prominent US politician Bernie Sanders, who was a member of the Oxford Green Party at the time.

Polanski described Larry as “a total dude.”

A former actor and hypnotist, Polanski rose up the ranks of the Green Party, highlighting his upbringing as a proud Jewish and gay man from north Manchester.

“I’m one of five Jewish people who have led a British political party in the last 100 years,” he has boasted, comparing himself to Benjamin Disraeli, Herbert Samuel, Michael Howard and Ed Miliband.

Polanski began his political career with the Liberal Democrats, representing them in the 2016 Greater London Assembly elections.

Insiders say his politics then were not aligned with the party’s left, but with the centrist wing that partnered with the Conservatives under Nick Clegg.

Frustrated by the party’s direction and after missing out on selection as a parliamentary candidate, he joined the Greens in 2017.

In 2018, Polanski publicly criticised then-Labour leader Corbyn over his handling of antisemitism and Brexit, saying that as both “pro-European” and a “Jew,” he had “two reasons” to oppose Corbyn.

Polanski’s stance on Israel and Zionism has undergone a 180 degree turn in recent years.

In October 2020, writing for Bright Green, he strongly supported the party adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, arguing it was necessary “to send a clear message to Jewish communities…that we stand in solidarity with them.”

He defended the IHRA against claims it stifled free speech on Israel, stating that it protected criticism of states like Israel and the USA as “settler colonial,” but not antisemitic arguments about Israel’s Jewish origins.

This position now seems far removed from his current stance.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the 7 October attack appears to have driven this shift.

In a May 2024 interview with the Guardian, Polanski described growing up in a “very Zionist household” but said: “That’s very different from my politics now.”

He emphasised: “I very much identify as Jewish… but I’m certainly not a Zionist.” In another interview, he said his view changed because “Israel has changed.”

Once a liberal Zionist who used his Jewish identity to build support within the Greens, Polanski now presents himself as a non or anti-Zionist – appalled by Netanyahu’s war in Gaza.

Some political observers describe this change as evidence of Polanski’s political opportunism.

Just a few years ago, he was an enthusiastic advocate of the London Jewish Assembly, an offshoot of the Board of Deputies. Now, he calls the same body “the Board of Deputies for the Israeli Government.”

Critics on both left and right note Polanski’s significant political journey over the past decade. “I hate to use the term chameleon, but it is apt in this case,” said one senior communal source.