Hackney Council said Israel Is "plausibly" committing genocide. The ICJ judge behind that ruling said they are wrong
Pandora Kay-Kreizman writes that by promoting the genocide lie the Greens in Hackney are contributed to the growth in anti-Semitism across the borough.
Last Tuesday evening (28 July 2026) Our Fight teamed up with local activists to oppose Hackney’s Green-led council’s farcical motion to “review” its twinned status with the town of Haifa. Farcical in that this exercise will only end one way: this divisive and shameful stunt rips apart nearly 60 years of municipal ties linking the two towns, most notably, those between Rambam Medical Centre and Homerton Hospital.
A renowned model of multiculturalism and peaceful coexistence across the Middle East, Haifa is most famed for its former Jewish Mayor, Shabtai Levy, and his appeal to Arab residents in the 1948 war of independence to remain rather than flee, as instructed by their leaders. Such an act of solidarity, one that runs counter to recent claims of wholesale ethnic-cleansing promoted after the war, now seems even more bitterly ironic in light of the Greens' divisive motion last Tuesday. In 1948 Levy drew on life-long friendships between Jews and Arabs and 30 years of civic coexistence under the British Mandate in his appeal. However, that call rested on a millennium of shared history dating back to the 9th century. None of this history matters to the Greens, who are spearheading the drive to demonise Israel and all those who support it.
Outside the town hall a boy, no more than twelve, scootered past our contingent giving us the middle finger. Less comically a masked youth approached to tell us to “go back home” and a keffiyeh-clad activist threw eggs at placard-holders and was arrested.
Mark Birbeck
Inside, Mayor Zoe Garbett and Cllr Sam Mathys were busy making up history: they rehearsed the sacred mantras of occupation, apartheid and genocide, since they had little by way of actual facts to help them.
Garbett misrepresented the “war crimes” findings of the high-sounding UN Independent Commission to claim that a genocide had been legally proven in Gaza. This not very independent body, with zero legal jurisdiction, is made up of three so-called “experts” who are all political appointees with an anti-Israel bias. Cllr Mathys, in predictable fashion, twisted the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, which was that it was “plausible” that the ICJ has the jurisdiction to investigate, not that it was “plausible that there is a ‘genocide’”.
At one point Mathys' mask slipped as she stated “we stand for justice and hate in all its forms”.
Quite.
Garbett has subsequently been forced to issue an apology to Haifa after informing them they had until 7 October to respond to the “review” proposals.
The opposition parties in the chamber were united against the motion. Labour Councillors Ben Lucas and Antoinette Bramble appealed to their Green colleagues to drop the proposal as divisive and likely to inflame community tensions whilst a visibly shocked Jewish Conservative Cllr Simche Steinberger argued that their actions were so reprehensible, Haifa was probably better served by cutting its ties to Hackney.
Hackney Greens can indeed take much credit for fostering a climate of hate against Jews. Anti-Semitic attacks hit a new monthly high in the borough in May–second only to Barnet in London—whilst the capital has seen a 72% month-on-month rise.
Aine Fox and Ian Jones, Press Association
Since Polanski took over the reins in September 2025 the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist rebrand of the formerly environment-focused party has seen membership nearly triple from 68,500 to over 220,000.
The Week UK
Their attempt to pass a motion stating “Zionism is racism” earlier this year only fell because Jewish Greens filibustered it; it will return at their Autumn conference.
In the May elections, hipster Hackney Greens won 42 of 57 council seats making the de-twinning a done deal. Will it give residents cause to pause and reflect? The borough is home to the oldest suburban Jewish community in the UK and in Stamford Hill, the largest Charedi community in Europe. In 1674, Isaac Alvares became the first Jew to buy a property in Homerton following Cromwell’s 1656 decision to nullify King Edward's 1290 Edict of Expulsion. Today 30,000 Jews make up 7% of the local population and one fifth of school children. Yet Hackney Greens chose to make de-twinning from Haifa front and centre of its first full council meeting.
Not bin collections nor even something “green” like Net Zero.
Did the people of Hackney really vote to see members of its community branded by zealots as racist, for the crime of supporting Israel? Sadly, it is Jewish residents who will be the first to pay the price for this performative hate-fest.