How could the Greens not know about hate-filled rant at Rabbi?
Leader claims ignorance of remarks
THE Greens were last night facing fury over their failure to suspend a councillor who launched a hate-filled tirade against a rabbi.
Mothin Ali, who was elected to Leeds city council last week, had called Leeds University’s Jewish chaplain, Zecharia Deutsch, a ‘creep’, a ‘low-life’ and an ‘animal’.
The 42-year-old had been allowed to stand for the Greens despite branding Israelis ‘white supremacists’ after the Hamas Palestinian terror group killed 1,200 people on October 7 last year. He was filmed shouting ‘We will raise the voice of Palestine – Allahu Akbar!’ after winning his council seat.
Yesterday the party faced a string of calls to take action against him, including from Jewish leaders.
In February Daily Mail writer Guy Adams presented the Greens with a dossier of offensive comments made by Mr Ali, including the tirade against Rabbi Deutsch.
At the time, the Green Party told this paper it ‘believes in free speech’ and Mr Ali was allowed to stand, and win, as a councillor.
But when asked about his remarks in a TV interview on Sunday night, Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party, appeared not to know about them.
She declined to comment when asked about how well the party vets candidates, saying she didn’t have ‘the full facts at hand’. She said the remarks sounded ‘very concerning’ and she would ‘make sure that those are looked into’.
Last night there was still no indication Mr Ali faced being suspended, with the Greens only saying they were ‘investigating’.
A prominent YouTuber who works as an accountant and runs a gardening blog, he sparked outrage in February with a video aimed at Rabbi Deutsch. Calling him a ‘kind of animal’, ‘creep’ an ‘absolute lowlife’, ‘absolutely disgusting’ and ‘shameful’, he falsely claimed he had tried to kill women and children in Gaza after temporarily returning to his IDF unit after the October 7 attacks.
The rabbi and his family were all forced into hiding after receiving an avalanche of threats.
Yet Mr Ali remained the Green candidate in the Leeds ward of Gipton and Harehills.
Leaders of Britain’s Jewish community yesterday condemned the Greens as ‘breathtakingly foolish, dangerous and insensitive’ for having stood by him. In an open letter to co-leaders Ms Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the chairman of Leeds Jewish Representative Council, Simon Myerson KC, wrote that Mr Ali had a ‘substantial history of views which are concerning to the Jewish community’.
Accusing the Greens of ‘hypocrisy’, he said the party had ‘known about Mr Ali’s views for a considerable time’, and insisted it was time to ‘formally suspend Mr Ali as a Green Party member’.
A party spokesman told the Daily Telegraph: ‘The party is investigating issues... in relation to Councillor Mothin Ali, so cannot comment further. However, we are clear that we never support anything that extols violence.’
Mr Ali has also been approached for comment.
‘Breathtakingly foolish’