UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski said labeling allegations of genocide in Gaza antisemitic makes Jewish people less safe, The Telegraph reported Friday.
Speaking at a by-election event in London hosted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Polanski argued that criticism of the Israeli state and antisemitism were too often conflated.
“We need to separate anti-Semitism from criticism of the Israeli state,” he said, according to the newspaper.
Polanski, who is Jewish, said many genocide scholars regarded Israel’s war in Gaza as genocide and argued that using the term was not antisemitic.
“I think as a Jewish community, we need to come together to recognize that when we call that anti-Semitic, we are making ourselves as Jewish people less safe,” he said.
The Telegraph characterized the remarks as suggesting Jewish people were to blame for rising antisemitism in Britain. Polanski did not make that claim explicitly in the quotations published by the newspaper.
He also reportedly described himself as an anti-Zionist during the event.
The Telegraph reported that audience members heckled him and that he did not directly answer repeated questions about whether Israel had a right to exist.
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