Green Party leader Zack Polanski has hired a spin doctor who denies women were raped in the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.
Abi Wilkinson – appointed just days before the party’s victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election – posted on social media: ‘There is no Israeli woman who’s said she was raped by militants.’
She also tweeted: ‘There’s absolutely no new evidence, there is not a single identified victim.’
And in further posts on the attacks in 2023 in which more than 1,100 were killed and 250 kidnapped, the 35-year-old added that she would not be ‘intimidated into pretending non-existent evidence from 7/10 is real’.
Witnesses, officials and experts from Israel and the UN unanimously concluded that there was ‘convincing evidence’ of rapes, gang rape and sexual violence during the tragedy.
Last night, there were calls for Ms Wilkinson to be sacked. Joani Reid, Labour MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, said: ‘The comments linked to this Green Party press officer are repellent.
‘Denying the October 7 atrocities, casting doubt on the rape and murder of women, and recycling anti-Semitic tropes is disgraceful.
‘It insults victims and it fuels fear in Jewish communities here at home.
Abi Wilkinson – appointed just days before the party’s victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election – posted on social media: ‘There is no Israeli woman who’s said she was raped by militants.’
Wilkinson pictured on a protest march with Palestine Action in London last year
‘Zack Polanski should sack her. He won’t, and that tells you a great deal about the standards he is willing to live with.
‘We should not be handling them with kid gloves because they wrap themselves in the progressive label.
If a party harbours extremism, it should expect to be called out.’
Before being hired by the Greens, Ms Wilkinson worked at the Left-wing online outlet Novara Media and wrote for The Guardian.
Mr Polanksi has praised her as a ‘prolific writer and fearless advocate for Palestine’.
The X account on which she posted has since been deleted but The Mail on Sunday can reveal repeated comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.
In one tweet, she accused Israel of pursuing ‘Lebensraum’, the Nazi term for ‘living space’ used to justify the invasion of Eastern Europe in the 1930s.
She also claims Israel turned Gaza into a ‘concentration/extermination camp’.
For their spring conference, Green Party members are calling on Mr Polanski to declare Zionism as racism, calling for the right of Palestinians to armed resistance and rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.
In other posts, she shared pictures of Jewish people with exaggerated facial features, describing them as ‘demonic’.
Last night Labour MP Natalie Fleet, who was a victim of rape herself, said: ‘Rape has been used as an act of war since time began.
‘When political parties who seek power deny what happens to women, it sets us all back.
‘Dismissing reports of sexual violence and mutilation during the October 7 Hamas attack is no different. People that refute the testimony of victims shouldn’t be anywhere near British politics.’
The Dinah Project represents rape victims of the October 7 attacks, and has gathered evidence from social media, recorded testimonies, forensic, visual and audio evidence.
It said: ‘Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon’, adding that ‘most victims were permanently silenced’, because they were either killed on October 7 or left too traumatised to talk.
Hamas’s hostages also described becoming ‘sex slaves’ after being kidnapped by the militants.
This is not the first time the party has been dogged by allegations of anti-Semitism. Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali described Leeds rabbi Zecharia Deutsch as an ‘animal’.
In an online video Ali also said: ‘How do you know he’s not going to kill your students over here?’
Three of the Green Party’s 2024 general election candidates shared ‘incendiary material’ which triggered an internal investigation into anti-Semitism.
A Green Party spokesman said last night: ‘We do not comment on individual staff members.’
