Mothin Ali, a member of Leeds City Council, has been elected as co-Deputy Leader of the Green Party.
On 8th February 2024, a video was published on Cllr Ali’s TikTok account in which he is seen addressing a Jewish university chaplain, who, as an Israeli citizen, had been called up to serve in the war against Hamas following the 7th October attacks.
Shortly after the video was published, it was reported that the chaplain had been forced to go into hiding with his family owing to the volume of death threats and menacing messages that he had received in the wake of the campaign to have him removed from his position.
So what else appears on Cllr Ali’s social media channels?
On 30th January 2024, a post was shared on his Facebook account which included an image listing various Labour MPs who had supposedly received donations from the Jewish British businessman and philanthropist Sir Trevor Chinn, with the caption: “All bought and paid for – those who took backhanders from the Israel Lobby”.
Cllr Ali’s account commented: “Labour, bought and paid for.”
On or around 20th January 2024, a post was reposted on Cllr Ali’s X account from rapper Lowkey. The post included a speech by the Labour MP David Lammy being disrupted by anti-Israel protester, with the comment: “Israel lobby-funded MP David Lammy has his speech disrupted today and runs away.”
On 16th January 2024, a video was published on Cllr Ali’s TikTok account in which he was heard stating: “So there you have it. Keir Starmer’s official position now is that Labour is no longer going to recognise Palestine. So one of the Labour policies has always been to recognise a state of Palestine, an independent state of Palestine, especially under Jeremy Corbyn. And this is why a lot of people supported Jeremy Corbyn and a lot of people came to the Labour Party because Jeremy Corbyn pledged to support and recognise Palestine immediately. I told you when Keir Starmer got in, Keir Starmer was an extreme Zionist and here’s his proof. Here’s the proof that Labour under Keir Starmer has turned into an extreme Zionist proxy.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had announced that a future Labour Government would not recognise a Palestinian state pre-emptively or unilaterally (a policy inherited from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership), but as part of a peace process including numerous nations. His Government has since announced that it will now be recognising such a state.
On 17th October 2023, a video was shared on Cllr Ali’s Facebook account from his TikTok account, in which he appeared to respond to claims that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza by stating: “This isn’t an act of self defence, this is an act of pure revenge. This is an act of bloodthirst. So the Israelis are thirsty for blood and they’re going to get their pound of flesh. And until they get their pound of flesh, they’re not going to be happy. You can see the fanatics out there celebrating every death, every death strike.”
Whilst many news outlets were quick to blame Israel for the hospital strike, subsequent analysis indicated that the cause of the explosion was a misfired missile by a terrorist organisation from within Gaza. The phrase “pound of flesh” was popularised by the Jewish villain of the Shakespeare play The Merchant of Venice.
On 10th October 2023, a video was shared on Cllr Ali’s Facebook account from his TikTok account, which appeared to be in response to Keir Starmer’s description of the 7th October assault as “an appalling attack on Israel, a terrorist attack.”
In the video, Cllr Ali is heard saying: “Now, this is exactly the type of person Keir Starmer is. He’s an extreme zionist. He’s a supporter of Israel.” Further, he is heard saying: “Yeah, all they’re saying is black and brown people don’t matter as long as these white supremacists in Israel can do whatever they want in order to establish their colonial power, in order to take over the indigenous population, in order to extract the resources that they want, in order to kill and to maim and to destroy whatever culture that was there before in order to establish their western colonial power.”
A comment was published on his account which read: “I’ll remind you that this did’’t [sic] start a few days ago, it’s been 75 years of occupation.”
75 years (which is around the age of the Jewish state) is a reference to Israel’s entire history, indicating that its very existence is illegitimate.
On 8th October 2023, a video was shared on Cllr Ali’s Facebook account from his TikTok account with the text: “This didn’t start yesterday, it started nearly 80 years ago by European settler colonialists! Never forget that the Western media will always portray indigenous people defending themselves as barbarians, however they dress it up, it’s just another manifestation of white supremacy!”
80 years (which is around the age of the Jewish state) is a reference to Israel’s entire history, indicating that its very existence is illegitimate.
On 7th October 2023, a video was published on Cllr Ali’s TikTok account in which he is heard saying: “So right at this very minute, Israel has launched one of the biggest attacks against the civilian population that we’ve seen for many years. Now they’re going to use the pretext of the fight back by Hamas fighters, or supposedly Hamas fighters, this morning. Now, remember the situation in Palestine, and especially the situation in Gaza. It’s an open-air prison. It’s the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen.”
He is also heard saying: “Every single person, every single people have [sic] a right to fight back. Every single people have a right to live free of occupiers.”
And further, “You see western propagandists on [sic] the media presenting some kind of victim narrative. They’re not victims, they’re occupiers. They’re colonialists. They’re European colonialists. It’s one of the last European colonies in the world. And that’s why the European people don’t want to let it go. Use the weapon of antisemitism so effectively that anyone who criticises Israel is labelled an antisemitic. We see through those lies, we see through that propaganda. People of the world, stay strong. Support Palestine. Support the right of indigenous people to have freedom and to fight back against occupiers.”
The same day, a post was published on his X account, which read: “White supremacist European settler colonialism must end! #Palestine #freedom #طوفان_الأقصى” The translation of the Arabic hashtag is “Aqsa flood”: the name given by Hamas for its brutal attacks on Israel that day.
On 9th November 2022, a post was published on Cllr Ali’s Facebook page which read: “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine.” In the comment section, another user wrote: “The Zionist government is reenactment of Hitler’s Holocaust. The difference is then we we’re [sic] defending humanity now wiping (Muslims) Hamas from the face of the earth.” Cllr Ali’s account ‘liked’ this comment.
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It says something serious about the direction of the Green Party that a councillor who recently faced calls to be suspended because of his outrageous conduct has been elected deputy leader. It is as if the EHRC report into antisemitism in our politics never happened. It’s all very well for the Green Party to claim to care about our planet, but there is less and less evidence that they care about the Jews who live on it.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
