Green Party Leader Blasts Anti-Semitism In Her Own Party

Green Party leader Annamie Paul has been since she began running for the leadership of the party back in 2020 up to the present day has been subject to constant anti-semitic attacks, not from the far-right, but rather from the political left.

A lot of anger has been directed at Paul from within her own party due to her taking a neutral stance on Israel’s conflict with Hamas, calling for the de-escalation of the conflict on both sides, which was not good enough for the party’s radical base which is so anti-Israel / anti-semitic that anything but full support for Hamas-run Palestine is considered a deep betrayal. 

Former Green Party MP Jenica Atwin even crossed the floor to the Liberals some weeks back due to Paul’s perspective on the issue. It should be noted that Atwin’s position on the conflict was so radical before the Liberals let her join their party they made her partially walk back some of her public comments as a means to pretend she wasn’t joining them simply due to her hatred of Israel. 

Paul in the past had not stood up to the anti-semites going after her on the left, but after the last few weeks of the board of the Green Party cutting off party funds from Paul and her staff, and refusing to help fund her next election campaign in Toronto Centre, while still providing funds and staff for former leader Elizabeth May, Paul finally had enough and began speaking out.

Despite there being a summit on anti-semitism held today, hosted by and the federal Liberal government and various Jewish advocacy/lobby organizations, Paul was not invited to formally attend the summit despite being the only Jewish leader of a major political party, and someone that has been subject to ongoing anti-semitic abuse, so Paul while being unable to speak and the summit instead uploaded her own video response speaking out about anti-semitism on Twitter.

Paul said that the summit needs to be focused on actual solutions to the problem of anti-semitism, the one she proposed being that the silence on the issue needs to end.

It was suspected that the reason Paul was not actually allowed to speak at the event and was merely allowed to watch, likely because the Liberal government and attending Jewish lobby organizations didn’t want anything actually controversial being discussed, especially because if Paul spoke it could partly implicate MP Atwin. 

Paul at the beginning of her statement also made a subtle shot across the bow of the Green Party revealing how the party regularly questions her loyalties for being Jewish and not being outright anti-Israel.

Paul said that:

I’m being regularly called into question with respect to my loyalty to Canada. I have been told that I should be shadowed as I participate in events in the community to see where my membership drives and fundraising are coming from. This is par for the course for being a Jewish politician in Canada, but it should not be…

This statement by Paul, without naming names, reveals that people inside the Green Party likely believe that because she is Jewish that she is somehow an agent for Israel and that she needs to be monitored out of suspicion she is conspiring to sell memberships in the Jewish community and collect donations from members of Jewish and or pro-Israel organizations.

If what Paul says is true it would easily be one of the most egregious examples of blatant 1930s style anti-semitism in the West today and the media has completely dropped the ball when it comes to investigating these extremely bigoted views within Green Party, a party that is supposedly a beacon of “progressivism”. 

It should also raise alarm bells in everyone’s minds that MP Atwin and other Green Party staffers and members are defecting to the Liberal Party and the NDP. It raises the question if seemingly the biggest issue for a lot of the Green Party members is Annamie Paul being Jewish and not fully anti-Israel then what do the defectors see in the NDP and the Liberals that caused them to change parties?

All of the very reasonable questions about anti-semitism on the left is likely never going to get answered by the legacy media, because despite being ok with calling out anti-semitism on the right, the lefty legacy media is uncomfortable with having to address the issues of left-wing and Islamist anti-semitism within the Green Party, NDP, and Liberals. 

At the very least it is good to see Paul finding her footing in her leadership crisis and beginning to address the issue of actual hate and bigotry directed at Jews and Israel on the political left.