‘I was wrong to jump to conclusions’: Chair of HAIFA apologises to Hackney Green party councillors over ‘terrorists’ accusation
HAIFA chair Martin Sugarman (YouTube)
Martin Sugarman, chair of Hackney Anglo Israel Friendship Association (HAIFA) has apologised to Hackney’s Green party councillors after appearing to accuse Green Party members of being “terrorists”.
“You should both be ashamed., like all Green Party members These are the terrorists who permeate your Green party round the nation,” wrote Sugarman in an email to Hackney’s Green party councillors Zoë Garbett and Alastair Binnie-Lubbock. (The grammar has not been edited from Sugarman’s copy.
In an email chain which included The Citizen, Sugarman attached a video of a Leeds Green party councillor shouting “Allahu Akbar” following his local election victory.
“This s the true face of the Green party, whose Hackney Cllrs want to break the twinning with Haifa. What an absolute disgrace. Sheer anti-Semitism,” he continued.
The emails were sent following the local elections at the start of May. Sugarman also included Labour councillors Guy Nicholson and Robert Chapman, as well as Hackney South and Shoreditch MP Meg Hillier, in the email chain.
Cllr Binnie-Lubbock responded saying he was “disturbed” by Sugarman’s emails, labelling them “inflammatory and inappropriate for someone who claims to want to promote friendship and understanding in this world.”
Sugarman has been chair of Hackney Anglo Israel Friendship Association (HAIFA) since the organisation formed in 1966, when Hackney’s twinning relationship with Haifa began.
“Unfortunately, I can only conclude that these remarks are motivated by Islamophobia”, Cllr Binnie-Lubbock continued, and said he would ask the council to review how they engage with “any organisation chaired by someone who holds such views which are antithetical to the inclusive values of Hackney” if Sugarman did not retract, and apologise for, his comments.
Cllr Binnie-Lubbock also wrote: “Allahu Akbar is a common Arabic expression […] Implying that this expression makes this Muslim councillor a terrorist is incredibly offensive,” and corrected Sugarman on “another factual inaccuracy”, as neither he nor Cllr Garbett “have called for the breaking of the twinning of Hackney and Haifa”.
“I would point out that I did not accuse all Green party members of being terrorists”, Sugarman replied, “on the contrary I indicated that Green party members and those who especially have become councillors should be ashamed of terrorists within their ranks”.
“Having said this, I have reconsidered my remarks… I accept that I was wrong to jump to conclusions from Councillor Mothin Ali’s shout of “Allahu Akbar”. For this only I apologise,” said Sugarman.
When approached by the Citizen for further clarification of what he meant by his accusations, Sugarman said: “In my opinion, the Green party has many supporters and members who have abandoned the Labour party… and the bulk of these new entrants are in my opinion openly or secretly supporters of Hamas / Palestinians.”
Sugarman said he has formed this opinion from “facts such as Zoë Garbett bringing forward the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) proposal to Hackney [Council’s] Pensions Committee”.
The chair of Hackney’s twinning relationship with Haifa said he was against Hackney divesting its pension fund shares in Elbit, an Israeli arms company which supplies weapons to the Israeli army, because “BDS aims to impoverish Israel in order that they cannot purchase where needed, the weapons to defend themselves”.
Sugarman labelled Cllr Garbett’s “support for the Palestinians” as “totally unrelated to Green party politics, and merely a euphemism for getting rid of Israel”.
Responding to these accusations, a Green party spokesperson said: “It’s incredibly offensive to conflate those who want to see the suffering end in Gaza with Hamas supporters.
“Despite international condemnation and pressure, the Israeli government has failed to institute a ceasefire, as called for by Hackney Council following the passing of a motion from Hackney’s Green councillors.
“This is despite the killing of over 35,000 Palestinians many thousands of whom were children and the wounding of tens of thousands more as well as 1,139 Israelis killed with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict.
“It is entirely appropriate for Hackney to review its investments and use what political power we have to push for peace. Just as we did in the face of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“In light of the harrowing loss of life and limb and the sickening destruction of hospitals, medical infrastructure and the killing of aid workers in Gaza, a twinning relationship between Hackney and Homerton Hospital… with [a] Gaza [hospital] would clearly be a powerful act.”
Interesting usual nonsense from the Greens. It is what they do NOT say that makes them look so vicious. They have had to sack several party Councillors or prospective Councillors and prospective MPs for anti-Semitic remarks, around the country, widely reported in the national press. Nothing on that.
They propose twinning with a Gaza hospital. Would that be the ones that imprisoned Israeli hostages, and possibly still do? Where they hid arms and ammunition for Hamas; and, it is alleged ,at least one Gazan doctor 'permitted' the death of a female Israeli hostage according to some reports? Nothing about the hostages then.
Are the Greens seriously proposing we twin Homerton with such places, run by a terror organisation? That would not be a 'powerful' act but a hypocritical betrayal whilst hostages are being held, including babies, women and elderly and wounded. And why a ceasefire when Hamas are sill firing rockets into Israel on almost a daily basis?
Nothing either about the fact that international agencies are re-assessing the numbers killed in Gaza, very much downward, and that no mention about the alleged 35,000 dead, that at least 20,000 are Hamas terrorists, and probably more?
We all want an end to the suffering – but hostages back first, then a ceasefire.
The Council's continued twinning with Haifa in Israel must come to an end. Palestinians suffered immensely during the Nakba of 1947-49 including in Haifa. The healthcare twinning with Haifa is completely unjustifiable seeing as Palestinians do not have equal access to health facilities having to at least go through many paperwork/ID checks and physical checkpoints to even get to one regardless of the nature of their illness on top of any further discrimination they'll face when getting any actual treatment.
As a Green Party member, not in Hackney, I have anticipated the attacks of being anti-jewish but the UK media and other policitcal parties. I also expect the various bodies and agencies who declare themselves to be leaders of the jeewish community to participate in this lying defamation.
As a third generation descendent of refugees from Russian pogroms. I grew up in London and experienced casual judeophobia as many jews have. But Israel is not my homeland, never has been. It is a State built on the lands of people who lived there. The process began in earnest in the 19th Century with people like Moses Montefiore and the Rothchilds. Jews have been paid to settle on lands where indigenous people were evicted. Much like the European settlers in North America or Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand where indigenous tribal people were displaced or killed or both.
In the UK we have our own example when Protestant Scots were settled on ther lands of Catholic Irish people in Ulster. This example is far less extreme that Israel/Palestine but it shows what is necessary to begin a peaceful road.
The idea that the numbers of people Israel has killed and maimed is being inflated is ridiculous, is it OK that the real number is 10,000? And who are these "international agencies" doubting the figures?
The first step has to be a ceasefire. You cant free hostages in the middle of a fire fight, as the IDF have learnt to the cost of many lives.
The nonsense spouted by Gar is typical of the Greens hypocrisy; he says he expected the Greens to be attacked for selecting racists to stand for the party in elections, but then does not deny it. So it is true then? Meanwhile their leader in Hackney is bringing forward a BDS proposal to the the Council Pension scheme which aims to impoverish Israel and thus help dis-enable Israel to defend itself against a 2nd Holocaust by Islamists. Fool. Israel is probably one of the world's 'greenest' nations – experts and appliers on a massive scale of solar power, HEP, de-salination, inventors of dry-farming techniques now used world-wide etc. So a good target for the Greens then? Meanwhile the Arab world grows fat on oil and gas burning, leading us to destruction. Great thinking Gar
Israel may not be YOUR homeland but it is where we Jews come from and lived there 3,000 years before the Arabs stole it from the Jews and colonised, settled, and ethnically cleansed us from our nation. Read your own history. The Arabs are the most colonialist and racist ethnic group on the planet, having destroyed many civilisations for centuries and subjugated the survivors as Dhimmis and Kaffers. Zionism is the world's oldest (1st century AD) and most successful national liberation movement . If national liberation is OK for the Irish, African, Asians, Arabs etc – then it is OK for Jews too . No hostages, no ceasefire
To Liar Layla – the Arabs murdered thousands of Jews in the 1947-48 Independence war and throughout the 1917-47 period; the Palestinian Arabs do not have the monopoly on suffering. The war was started by the Arabs in 1947 (even though the UN voted on a fair partition, for 2 states side by side) – and they invaded Israel; they lost ; get over it. The Pals have NEVER been willing to accept a 2 State solution due to their racist views on Jews who they see only fit for subjugation and conquest.
Arabs and Jews live peacefully in Haifa , a city of exemplified co-existence and worthy of twinning. Your racial slur that Arabs in Haifa or anywhere in Israel do not get equal health care is a disgrace; a racist slur also on the professionalism of Jewish and Arabs doctors and nurses in Israel – who work side by side – and a Nazi style anti-Semitic trope.
There are no internal checkpoints – you lie; the checkpoints are for the Arabs from the PNA West Bank and Gaza as they are NOT Israeli citizens – and not for checking Israelis of any religious group.
Go and read some books.
And Layla – remember the 1 million Jews expelled by the Arabs from the Arab lands, in 1947-52, and form Iran since then, where Jews had lived for 1,1oo years BEFORE Islam.
And Gar – you CAN free hostages in a firefight – Israel did it at Entebbe and the UK SAS at the Iranian Embassy siege