Green Party leader Zack Polanski faces fresh controversy after questioning Israel’s right to exist as a nation.
Mr Polanski told ITV’s Robert Peston: “I don’t believe any country has a right to exist. People have a right to exist.”
He claimed “semantics about whether a country has a right to exist” was the root cause of the “mess” of the current Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The exchange followed Mr Polanski’s poll ratings, which plummeted after he shared a post criticising police officers’ treatment of a suspect accused of stabbing two Jewish men in Golders Green last week, and after he admitted falsely claiming to have once been a “spokesman” for the British Red Cross.
He was challenged over his stance on Israel in an interview on ITV’s Peston in which he described Israel as a “genocidal apartheid state” over its war on Gaza.
Mr Peston asked him: “Israel has a right to exist? Yes or no?”
Mr Polanski replied: “I don’t believe any country has a right to exist. People have a right to exist. The Israelis have a right to exist; the Palestinians have a right to exist.
“I think it is our role as a third country to make sure there is fairness, transparency and accountability about a peace process (in the Gaza conflict).
“I always think these semantics about whether a country has a right to exist just end up in gatekeeping, which is how we ended up in this mess in the first place with the Balfour Declaration.”
Mr Peston responded: “The implication of that is that Britain doesn’t have the right to exist, which also carries quite heavy connotations.”
Mr Polanski’s reference to the Balfour Declaration relates to the statement in 1917 by British foreign secretary Lord Balfour, which promised a “national home” for the Jewish people.
It is seen as paving the way for the creation of Israel in 1948 and the removal of large numbers of Palestinians from their homes.
Mr Polanski’s reference to gatekeeping relates to the concept of “colonial gatekeeping”, whereby the fate and borders of post-colonial states are dictated by their former colonial rulers.
The Balfour Declaration led to the “British Mandate” in Palestine, established in 1923 by the League of Nations (the precursor to the UN) and which resulted in Jewish immigration overseen by the British authorities in the run-up to the creation of Israel after the Second World War.
The mandate has been criticised for sowing the seeds of the bitter ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
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