Zack Polanski has accused the government of using an antisemitic terror attack in north London to restrict the right to peaceful protest – saying as the only Jewish leader of a major political party he suffers antisemitic abuse daily and that the correct response to the Golders Green stabbings is to stand firm in both defending Jewish communities and protecting civil liberties – not to use tragedy as political cover for curtailing rights.
The Green Party leader’s intervention came as the government faced growing pressure to ban pro-Palestine marches following Tuesday’s attack in Golders Green, in which two Jewish men were stabbed in one of London’s most prominent Jewish communities. Essa Suleiman, a 45-year-old Somalia-born British citizen, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder in connection with the attack and a third count of attempted murder over a separate incident earlier the same day in south London. He appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday and was remanded in custody.
The attack and its victims
The stabbing took place on the afternoon of 28 April in Golders Green – a neighbourhood in north London that is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe and sits just 300 yards from the site of a recent arson attack targeting ambulances owned by the Jewish charity Hatzola.
Shloime Rand, 34, and Moshe Shine, 76 – named locally as Moshe Ben Baila – were both hospitalised in serious condition. Rand has since been discharged and is recovering at home after receiving stitches. Shine remains hospitalised but in a stable condition. Rand told the BBC it was “a miracle” he survived, adding: “I feel like God’s given me back my life.”
Suleiman was referred to the government’s Prevent counter-extremism programme in 2020, but the case was closed the same year. Reports emerged that he had been imprisoned in 2008 for stabbing a police officer and had left a psychiatric hospital run by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in recent days before the attack. Scotland Yard declined to comment on the psychiatric hospital report.
A newly formed terror group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya claimed responsibility for the attack. Starmer said his government would seek “stronger powers to tackle the malign threat” posed by such organisations.
The political response
The UK terrorism threat level was raised to “severe” in the wake of the attack, meaning another attack is considered highly likely within six months. Starmer visited Golders Green on Thursday, where he was met by protesters chanting – including some chanting critically of his own record on the issues. He condemned the attack in the strongest terms, pledging stronger action to protect British Jews, who have faced a series of violent attacks in recent months.
Starmer also backed the prosecution of people chanting “globalise the intifada” at protests, describing such chants as equivalent to calls for terrorism. Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said it was “a fact” that pro-Palestine marches had featured antisemitic activity, citing calls for global intifada and chants she described as “death chants.” She was careful to add that not everyone on such marches was antisemitic.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed it would be reviewing whether future marches – including a planned Stop the War Coalition demonstration on May 16 to mark Nakba Day – could go ahead in light of the raised threat level. Assistant Commissioner for Counter Terrorism Policing Laurence Taylor said police would be “reviewing all events across the country” as part of the threat-level review.
Polanski’s response
Polanski posted a detailed statement on X, opening by acknowledging the gravity of the attack and its impact on Jewish communities.
“Jewish communities woke up this morning feeling incredibly scared after yet another odious antisemitic attack,” he wrote. “This is a time for politicians to work together to protect Jewish people – but some party leaders are instead using this moment to make political attacks.”
He then identified himself directly in the debate: “I am the only Jewish leader of a major political party and I suffer antisemitic abuse every single day. For other politicians to use antisemitism as a political football, especially after these appalling attacks, is utterly appalling and should be beneath them.”
He drew a clear line between condemning the attack and opposing the use of it to restrict civil liberties. “We must also be clear that any response to these abhorrent attacks that curtail our civil liberties would be wrong. For a Government to seek to use the pain of the Jewish community to restrict our right to peaceful protest would be a dangerous error.”
He concluded: “We must not respond to grave moments like this by turning inwards, or by clamping down on our hard won rights. Instead we must stand firm in both defending communities against such attacks and by confidently protecting the right of all of us to peaceful protest.”
The Met and Polanski clash
In a separate development, Met Commissioner Mark Rowley criticised Polanski publicly after the Green leader retweeted a post accusing officers of “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated after being tasered – a reference to Suleiman’s arrest footage that had circulated widely online.
Rowley said he was “disappointed,” called the post “inaccurate and misinformed” and warned that Polanski’s decision to use his platform to criticise the officers “will have a chilling effect.” A Green Party spokesperson said Polanski “knows it was a very difficult situation for the authorities.”
Journalist Owen Jones described the Commissioner’s intervention as “interference” in politics and “outrageous,” warning it legitimised “a deeply disturbing precedent” for police chiefs to publicly challenge elected politicians over social media posts.
The Your Party position
Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party issued a broader statement accusing politicians of “weaponising the abhorrent stabbings to strip away civil liberties.” The statement described those marching against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “not racists” but “the beating heart of anti-racism,” and called attempts to link recent attacks with the pro-Palestine movement “baseless.”
The Stop the War Coalition has similarly described attempts to link the Golders Green attack with pro-Palestine marches as “false.”
The civil liberties question
The debate sits at one of the most contested intersections in British public life: the right to peaceful protest versus the duty of the state to protect communities from violence and intimidation.
The government’s position – that some specific chants at protests cross the legal line into incitement and that the threat environment requires a review of future marches – is legally defensible and reflects a genuine tension between competing rights. The right to protest is not absolute and has never included a right to chant death threats.
Polanski’s position – that the attack should not be exploited to justify a broader curtailment of the right to peaceful protest against a foreign government’s actions – is also a legitimate one, and carries particular weight coming from the only Jewish leader of a major British political party.
Whether Starmer’s government is genuinely responding to a security threat or, as Polanski suggests, using that threat as cover for a politically convenient restriction on marches that have embarrassed it internationally is a question on which the evidence is, at this point, genuinely mixed. The answer may depend on what specific restrictions the government actually introduces – and whether they are proportionate, targeted and temporary, or sweeping, permanent and politically convenient.
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