Baseless and scurrilous attacks against Green Councillor

A reminder: In May 2026, Kamel Hawwash became the first Palestinian elected to Birmingham City Council. For many years he was the Chair of the UK Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Within Birmingham’s new Green and Liberal Democratic administration, Kamel, a Green Party member, was given the Cabinet responsibility for Children, Young People and Families.  This has produced a vile backlash from Zionists in Birmingham and elsewhere who, as usual, claim to speak on behalf of “the” Jewish community.

As well as the local press, this has been picked up by GB News, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, ITV have carried his rejection of the attack on their website but also repeated the allegations, eg that he supported the Hamas attack on October 7th 2023 and that he is antisemitic. That, of course, is “the story”.

However, the Daily Mail had to issue a retraction of its false claims that Kamel had praised Hamas for its actions on 7th October 2023. Yet these scurrilous attacks keep coming and now Birmingham Labour MP Al Carns makes a fresh call to force out Birmingham Green councillor over Israel.

Both Labour and Reform Councillors in Birmingham have also expressed their outrage at the appointment as can be seen in this article also referring the the call by Al Carns MP for Cllr Hawwash to go.

JVL stands in solidarity with Kamel Hawwash and we wrote to this effect to  the News Editors at Birmingham Live that reported the allegations. Our letter is posted on the JVL website here.

We offer here some critique of the accusatIons that have been made against Hawwash. We fully expect to see attacks of a similar kind made against many others, Green councillors and activists in particular, in the coming months. We have seen this before in the Gadarene rush to gang up against the Labour Party from 2016 onwards and fear we are in for another round.

Such a statement should not be necessary but let us stress at the outset that we are implacably opposed to antisemitism as to all forms of racism. We know it exists at many levels in our society and therefore in our political parties. But any strategy for dealing with it has to first identify it correctly and not be based on the conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism which clearly underpins the allegations against Kamel. It is nothing but the weaponisation of antisemitism and will do nothing to make Jewish communities safer from the reality and the  fears of antisemitism which we all share but which overwhelmingly have their roots elsewhere – on the right. Creating a moral panic about antisemitism in radical movements in our society has more to do with resisting radical change than any desire to combat racism in any of its manifestations.

The allegations against Hawwash are contained in a complaint filed by Ruth Jacobs on behalf of the “Jewish Representative Council of Birmingham and the West Midlands”. The full letter is nowhere available on the web but extracts from it are quoted on Birmingham Live and elsewhere. So note, first of all, that we are unable to verify the actual words Hawwash is alleged to have used or the context in which they were deployed. Hawwash himself is quite clear in the ITV News report that he was misquoted (see Appendix below).

The first point to stress is the lack of clarity in the accusations and the way in which they all allegedly point to “antisemitism” as though the mere use of this word is proof of Hawwash’s guilt. What runs through them is the assumption that criticism of Israel and of Zionism can be presumed to be motivated by antisemitism, rather than disagreement with or even horror and outrage at what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

The complaint, we are told by Birmingham Live, includes this:

Mrs Jacobs wrote to Coun Harmer about Coun Hawwash’s views two weeks ago, highlighting her concern that he had expressed support for Hamas and made reference to them having ‘courage’. These included tweets apparently blaming Israel for the October 7 attack.

He had also previously described Zionism, support for the existence of the state of Israel, as ‘Jewish supremacy’ and described Hamas as a ‘liberation and resistance Islamic movement’, she said in her letter.

Which if any of these things he actually said is not clear – he explicitly denies supporting Hamas in his interview on ITV (see extracts below)– but in relation to the general argument we would make the following points:

• Zionism does not mean support for the existence of the (existing) state of Israel but was a broader belief in the need for a Jewish state.
• Zionism is as Zionism does and so we need to focus on the actual lived experience of Zionism as practised by the state of Israel and experienced by the Palestinian people
• Israel does operate based on Jewish Supremacy, over the c.7 million Palestinians under its direct control.

Israel’s premier human rights organisation B’Tselem in its 2021 report “This is Apartheid” insists that:”The Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it controls (Israeli sovereign territory, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) an apartheid regime. One organizing principle lies at the base of a wide array of Israeli policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians.”

• Whatever ones views of Hamas, it is a fact that they are part of the liberation and resistance movement. Furthermore under international law, people living under occupation have the right to resist, up to and including armed resistance. (This does not include the right to kill, wound or kidnap civilians.) There is nothing criminal or antisemitic in pointing all this out.

The Birmingham Live articles also note: “He has always openly proclaimed his belief that the creation of Israel on Palestinian land in 1948 was against the will of those living there and caused a major refugee crisis, amounting to an act of terror.”

• Clearly this is a statement of fact about which reference can be made to several Israeli historians as well as Palestinian one. This includes those who remain strong in their support for Israel and yet it seems to be included as another example of his perfidy. Benny Morris , for example, recognised that:  Israel started the civil war in 1947; Ethnic cleansing operations began months before May 15 1948 and that No Arab leaders told Palestinians to flee (see eg 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War )

The Jewish Representative Council of Birmingham and the West Midlands (like the Board of Deputies of British Jews nationally) seem incapable of distinguishing between facts it does not like, opinions is disagrees with, and “antisemitism”.

The article notes that: “Jewish organisations in the region… citing tweets and views they said appeared to support proscribed terrorist group Hamas, who were behind the October 7 border terror attacks, and amounted to antisemitism.

The complaint asserts without evidence that his views appeared to support Hamas and then draw the false conclusion that this “amounted to antisemitism”. It is necessary to keep reminding people that antisemitism is hatred of Jews as Jews and not hatred of Israel’s heinous treatment of Palestinians – or even support for those fighting against this.

On the basis of unevidenced allegations and facts which she does not like, Ruth Jacobs goes on to draw the outrageous conclusion that “The promotion of Coun Hawwash to any position in the council administration is totally unacceptable”.

She also wrote: “You have the power to stop Coun Hawwash from running our city. We urge you to take whatever action is necessary to stop the local Liberal Democrats from entering into a coalition which includes this individual. Now is the time for you to take the tough action necessary to deal with antisemitism.”

Thankfully the Council’s Coalition Leadership has so far stood firm.

Appendix – story on ITV

Here is Cllr Hawwash’s response to the allegations in his own words which completely demolish the false accusations of antisemitism levelled against him.

Following Cllr Hawwash’s announcement as a Green candidate, it was widely reported that he praised the October 7th attacks, describing them as “courage in the face of aggression”.

…

Speaking exclusively to ITV News Central, Mr Hawwash has said these allegations are “false” and condemned the attacks on civilians.

He says the comments have been misattributed to him and instead came from the title of a news segment on a Lebanese news channel on which he appeared.

Mr Hawwash said: “Suggesting that these words were my own is a gross misrepresentation.”

…

In the statement to ITV News Central, Cllr Hawwash said, “It is entirely false to claim that I praised the 7 October attacks or described them as ‘courageous’.

“I shared a video from a major Lebanese news channel on which I appeared as an academic and political analyst discussing events in Gaza on 17 October.

“I was not discussing the events of 7 October, and I unequivocally condemn all attacks on civilians.

“The headline ‘Special Coverage | 10 Days of the Al-Aqsa Flood: Heroism in the Face of Aggression’ was the broadcaster’s title for the news segment, not a statement by me. Suggesting that these words were my own is a gross misrepresentation.

“I reject claims of antisemitism. I am fully committed to standing up for all Birmingham’s diverse communities and working to ensure Birmingham is a welcoming place for all of them.