Greens take on antisemitic Times cartoon

Their complaint is welcome: the Green Party need to go on the attack

The Green Party has submitted a complaint to The Times newspaper after it published a cartoon depicting Zack Polanski using obvious antisemitic tropes.

They note that the cartoon shows Polanski with a visibly hooked nose, perhaps the classic example of antisemitic imagery.

The Green Party have issued the following statement:

It is astonishing that amongst a rising climate of anti-Semitism in the UK, a national newspaper has chosen to publish a cartoon of the only Jewish political leader in the country using tropes so clearly associated with anti-semitic depictions of Jewish people.

“Zack faces daily anti-semitism, and in the past six weeks two people have been arrested for anti-semitic actions towards him. The words used by both politicians and the media this week, directing further attacks towards Zack in the wake of a violent attack on his community, are deeply irresponsible.

It comes as the country’s only Jewish party leader is subjected to a relentless pile-on after two Jewish and one Muslim Londoner were attacked on Thursday.

All the main party leaders and British media outlets have made Polanski the focus of their attention.

This is a deeply disturbing campaign - and it is clear what the strategy is, as I’ll write more about. They are going to seek to strip away Polanski’s Jewish identity and relentlessly smear him - and the Green Party - over antisemitism. Above all, that’s because he is a) pro-Palestinian and b) left-wing.

The party need to go on the offensive. That’s the only way to face down these bad faith attacks.