Noa Hoffman

Israel Tel Aviv’s promenade on a Saturday night is heavenly. To one side, the Mediterranean glistens, dotted with boogie boards and children squealing as they splash into the surf. In the other direction, families, couples and friends picnic on lush green grass to the sound of lapping waves and two acoustic guitarists making their way through ‘Hotel California’. It is the Israeli idyll, ripe for a postcard – and a brief respite from the deep divisions that make Tuesday’s election such a consequential choice for the country. Arriving at Ben Gurion Airport last Thursday, I was struck by a country that is at once admirably resilient and deeply traumatised.

The creator of the ‘Palestine poppy’ is an Oxford-educated paediatrician who has written books for Muslim teenagers justifying stoning and warning that homosexuality is ‘a test from Allah’. Abdul Qader Ismail was accused of trying to ‘hijack’ Remembrance Day after he began selling an enamel pin shaped like a poppy in the colours of the Palestinian flag for £1.78 on eBay. The pin is listed as ‘not for profit’ with money being donated to Gaza charities. The Spectator can now reveal that Ismail is an active member of Greens for Palestine and co-sponsored the group’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ policy. He is also the author of a book series titled An Introduction to Challenging Topics for Muslim Teens.

Labour finally found some gumption today as it ramped up its attacks on the Greens’ anti-Semitic ‘Zionism is Racism’ policy. In a somewhat surprising move, party chair Bridget Phillipson announced that the 18 Labour council groups in power-sharing arrangements with Zack Polanski’s party will seek a ‘clear and unambiguous statement’ from their Green counterparts rejecting the motion. Councillors will have seven days to disavow it or face the termination of their cooperation agreements. They have also been instructed to write to Polanski urging him to reverse the decision. The ultimatum has been warmly welcomed by Labour moderates, who are desperate to avoid pandering to the very people Sir Keir Starmer expended considerable internal political capital purging from the party.

Reform today pledged the ‘biggest mass deportation programme’ in UK history, as Nigel Farage thrust the issue of illegal migration back onto the Westminster agenda. Over the long conference recess, Andy Burnham has made an immense effort to steer public discourse away from the dinghy crisis, opting instead to make bogus claims about Russian interference in Brexit and focus on forging closer ties with Europe. At a press conference in Dover today, Farage sought to put an end to Labour’s distraction tactics – and he was shrewd to do so. Burnham and his advisers appear to believe that by avoiding the subject of illegal migration, the crisis will simply be forgotten.

European countries that impose boycotts on Israel are ‘anti-Semitic’ and risk retaliatory sanctions from the United States, a senior Trump administration official has declared. Speaking in Washington DC, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon criticised countries including the UK, France and Norway over measures targeting goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. https://twitter.com/hoffman_noa/status/2107571787366113556 Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights division at the Department of Justice, said: ‘What we call this in the United States is the BDS movement. It is anti-Semitism. And I think every country that is doing that is going to risk, while President Trump is in power, retaliatory or corresponding sanctions potentially.

More than a dozen Labour MPs have reported the Green party to Sussex police and the EHRC over its ‘Zionism is racism’ policy, The Spectator can reveal. Zack Polanski’s party was plunged deeper into crisis this afternoon after politicians, led by former Home Office minister Mike Tapp and Labour Friends of Israel chair, Mark Sewards, urged police in Brighton to examine whether events at the Green conference may have crossed into criminally actionable racial or religious hatred against Jewish people. The MPs point to delegates chanting ‘say it loud, say it clear, Zionists are not welcome here’ as a potential legal flashpoint, questioning whether the term ‘Zionist’ was being used as a proxy for Jewish people.

The Green party has produced an Orwellian glossary of ‘unacceptable’ language ahead of its conference this weekend. Its new ‘Inclusive Terminology Guidance’ instructs members to stop using words and phrases including ‘elderly’, ‘female politician’ and ‘mothers and fathers’. Also discouraged are ‘able-bodied’, ‘sex-change’, ‘homosexual’, ‘lady doctor’, ‘youngster’ and ‘sexual preference’. The guidance recommends replacing ‘gendered job titles’ with ‘gender-neutral terms wherever possible’. Members should say ‘chair’ instead of ‘chairman’, ‘police officer’ instead of ‘policeman’ and ‘parents and carers’ rather than mothers and fathers.

Sir Ed Davey today attempted to woo disillusioned One Nation Tories with a pledge to raise the higher-rate income tax threshold from £50,270 to £56,000. The Lib Dem leader also promised to increase the basic-rate threshold from £12,570 to £15,000 and the additional-rate threshold from £125,140 to £130,000. Sir Ed argued that a ‘tax band designed for stockbrokers is now holding back teachers and nurses’. He declared: ‘That’s not fair. It’s not right.’ The proposed changes would, however, take eight years to deliver, coming into force only in the fifth year of the next parliament. The policy is also based on the proviso that Britain rejoins the EU single market and customs union, which Sir Ed insists would boost the economy by £17 billion.