‘Non-Jewish’ Lib Dem joins the ‘Polanski is antisemitic’ pile on
Earlier this week, we reported that Zack Polanski — the Green Party leader — was tussling with the “notorious pro-Israel agitator John Mann (who is not Jewish)“, and also with the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Conflating Antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli government is dangerous.
The Board of Deputies keep muddying the waters.
This isn’t about him being Jewish – it’s about his position as Vice-Chair of Labour Friends of Israel. https://t.co/9QBgY7EhMR
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) January 15, 2026
Now, another non-Jewish defender of Israel has stumbled into the ring:
More awkwardness for the Lib Dems as they go out to bat against Jewish people in defence of an Israeli Government committing genocide.
Should we start with the fact that literally no one has been banned from a school? https://t.co/JifIECEegm
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) January 17, 2026
The head banging idiocy of political pond scum
The story began when a school blocked Labour MP Damian Egan from visiting because Egan is the vice-chair of ‘Labour Friends of Israel’. Several parents and teachers opposed the visit from Egan because Israel is a foreign nation engaged in a genocide; the Zionist Board of Deputies, meanwhile, tried to convince everyone that Egan was banned because he’s Jewish.
Are you tired of this shit?
Tough luck if you are, because our political classes have decided to double down.
John Mann — the non-Jewish antisemitism tsar — continues to pepper Polanski with post-cocktail hour responses:
This is the third night in a row John Mann has launched late night attacks on the Jewish leader of the Green Party. last night he was demanding a meeting. proper Neil Coyle vibes. https://t.co/E2yYLY5AC9
— Dr Iain Darcy 🍉 🇮🇪 💚 (@doctoriaindarcy) January 18, 2026
We’re not saying Mann has been on the booze, by the way; we’re just noting he’s most engaged around the time when a boozer would be.
If you’re looking for some verifiable facts about Mann, the Canary’s Ed Sykes wrote the following:
Former Labour right-winger John Mann has a long history of cynically weaponising antisemitism allegations. And the Tories rewarded him for his efforts in smearing left-wing opponents of Israeli war crimes by putting him in the House of Lords and making him an ‘antisemitism tsar’.
Mann has received tens of thousands of pounds from pro-Israel lobby groups over the years. This has included many visits to Israel, one of which the Israeli government paid for itself. Pro-Israel lobbyists Trevor Chinn and Trevor Pears, meanwhile, donated generously when he was MP for Bassetlaw.
Shit, give me ten grand and I’ll change the headline of this article to Zack Polanski is an antisemite right now. This is a joke, obviously, but if someone wants to pay ME to call Mann a ‘potato-faced cyber stalker’, I’d be open to negotiations.
Back to Ludford’s question to Polanski
All that out of the way, let’s remind ourselves what Lib Dem Sarah Ludford said:
So as a (non-Jewish) Vice-President of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel @_LDFI I should also be banned from schools, @ZackPolanski? https://t.co/S7pX7vopUc
— Sarah Ludford 🇬🇧 🇮🇪🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@SarahLudford) January 17, 2026
Sarah, you are the ‘friend’ of a nation which committed a genocide; a nation which subjected a hostage population to apartheid conditions for decades — of course you shouldn’t be anywhere near children. You shouldn’t be allowed to own cutlery. A paid carer should make all your decisions for you. You’re a bad fucking idiot, Sarah. Something is wrong with you. The only people you should be ‘friends’ with are the medical professionals working around the clock to make you normal again.
So yeah, all things considered, Polanski’s response was pretty measured.
This is how Ludford justifies her ‘friendship’:
I really cannot get my head round your inability to understand the difference between my friendship towards the State of Israel & its right to exist in peace & security, which has not been granted to it in the 80 years since it was founded, & my opposition to the Netanyahu govt https://t.co/1NQbpcTRnj
— Sarah Ludford 🇬🇧 🇮🇪🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@SarahLudford) January 18, 2026
As noted, Israel subjected the Palestinians to apartheid long before Netanyahu took power, and look set to do so long after he’s gone (if they can get away with it):
Israeli society is totally fascist and genocidal.
A poll by Israeli newspaper Haaretz found the majority of Israelis want to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and expel Palestinians from Israel.
Half of Israelis want to KILL EVERYONE IN GAZA.
Screenshots from Google Translate.
Source:… pic.twitter.com/EmOdkONkuJ
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 24, 2025
The trick of blaming everything that’s happening on Netanyahu is a clumsy sleight of hand.
These people think you’re stupid.
And we’re not saying this is a problem that is unique to Israeli society. This is exactly how the French population in Algeria felt about Algerians. Exactly How white South Africans felt about the native Black population. The problem isn’t with a brainwashed society. It is with settler colonialism which needs a brainwashed society to survive.
Ridiculous
If there was a parliamentary group called ‘Friends of Boko Haram’, people would take opposition to that, and it would look ridiculous if its members complained that they were the victim of racism. It’s silly to compare Israel to Boko Haram, of course, as the genocide committed in Gaza is significantly worse than anything Boko Haram have ever done. Despite this, hundreds of British politicians are in ‘Friends of Israel’ groups.
It’s staggering.
And one day we’ll look back and marvel at how brazen these freaks were.
Featured image via Barold
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“The problem …. is with settler colonialism”.
The linkage of the colony with self described Judaism is the trick. It very clearly is nothing of the sort, as evidenced by the scores, thousands, of Jewish families who choose (or try to choose) to have between little and nothing to do with the colony. Its evidenced by the vast difference in opinion, as outlined by the poll quoted above, between the settler population and Jewish people elsewhere in the world. It is evidenced by the fact that Jewish people have never (or at least since the bronze age, when nearly everybody did it) been admirers of genocide; and yet the settlers and colonists in Palestine appear to be not merely admirers of genocide, but enthusiastic practitioners.
Colonies breed genocide.
They did so in Australia under the British, they did so in the Americas under Spain, and England, they did so under the Germans in South West Africa, and did so under the Dutch in the East Indies.
Antisemitism, the term used to describe a belief in Judaism as a racial nationality inferior to Aryanism, is the tool used to falsely suggest the present genocide is a collective Jewish endeavour, to disguise the self evident appreciation that it is ‘merely’ conduct inherent to settler colonialism. It is an option any colonists will take whenever it is available to them.
It is also the reason why the colony needs to be concluded, either by being weakened to such a point that it no longer has the overwhelming military and diplomatic strength to practise genocide.
And more particularly, that colonies, and genocides, should be confined to the dusty realm of ancient history, along with ritual child sacrifice and ritual cannibalism.
Don’t dignify the grotesque behaviour on display here with a comparison to mental illness. It denies their responsibility for their own actions, and unfairly demonises people with genuine mental health problems by putting them into the same category as genocide enablers.
Indeed Ninetailed. I really didn’t see the point of that passage beyond being an angry rant, which distracts from otherwise acute points.
“Sarah, you are the ‘friend’ of a nation which committed a genocide… of course you shouldn’t be anywhere near children”: does that apply to every friend of apartheid Israel? Such as parents who are arms workers producing the tools to blind, seriously injure or kill Palestinian children? In this case, it might have been better tactics to permit the Zionist to address the pupils so that anti-genocide teachers could use it as an educational resource in the lies that Zionists tell.