Palestine has right to ‘fight back’, says Green councillor

Mothin Ali won the Gipton and Harehills seat with 3,070 votes to defeat Labour hopeful Arif Hussain, who received 2,323 votes

A Green Party councillor who shouted “Allahu Akbar!” after being elected said Palestinians had the right to “fight back” on the day of the October 7 massacre.

Mothin Ali, 42, has previously described a Jewish chaplain forced into hiding by threats from protestors, as a “creep” and a “kind of animal”, and suggested that he had deliberately attempted to “kill women and children” by serving with the Israeli army as a reservist after the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

Mr Ali won the Gipton and Harehills ward in Leeds with 3,070 votes and said his election to the council was a “win for the people of Gaza”.

Delivering his victory speech, the father-of-three who works as an accountant and runs a gardening blog, said: “We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu Akbar!”

Mr Ali was one of dozens of candidates around the country who ran on a Gaza ticket and defeated their Labour rival.

A series of videos posted on his social media channels have now re-emerged including one posted after October 7 when Hamas launched the worst attack in Israel’s history, killing more than 1,200 people.

As Israel responded to the attack, he said the country was going to “use the pretext of the fight back by Hamas fighters or supposedly Hamas fighters this morning” to launch attacks on civilians.

He said Gaza was the “biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen” and urged viewers to “support the right of indigenous people to fight back”.

Mr Ali added that Israel was a “settler, colonial, occupier” which had tried to “erase the legitimacy of a native population”.

“They use the pretext of rockets and they use the pretext of people resisting an occupier to further destroy a civilian population,” he said.

“They are not victims, they are occupiers, they are colonialists, they are European colonialists. It’s one of the last European colonies in the world and that’s why the European people don’t want to let it go. They use the weapon of anti-Semitism so effectively that anyone who criticises Israel is labelled as anti-semitic.”

He urged viewers to “support the right of indigenous people to have freedom and to fight back” against “occupiers”.

Mothin Ali shouted ‘Allahu akbar!’ after victorious election result – TWITTER

Mr Ali also criticised Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, the Jewish chaplain at the University of Leeds who was forced into hiding by online threats from pro-Palestinian activists because he had served with the IDF. There is no suggestion Mr Ali threatened Rabbi Deutsch.

The university was forced to step up security for Rabbi Deutsch, who received hundreds of calls and messages as well as abuse on social media, and left his home and moved his family into hiding on the advice of police.

In a video online, Mr Ali called for Leeds University to cut ties with Rabbi Deutsch and falsely suggested he went to Israel to kill children when serving in the IDF.

He said: “This is Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch. This creep, that’s the only way I can describe him politely, is someone who went from Leeds to Israel to kill children and women and everyone else over there.

“He is supposed to be a guide who shows people a moral away. Instead of doing that, he took a leave of absence from his employment at Leeds University and he went over to Israel to kill innocent civilians over there. He’s an absolute lowlife.”

He said the university should be protecting its students against “this kind of animal” because “if he is willing to kill people over there, how do you know he is not going to kill your students over here?”

‘On the side of righteousness’

In an online post, Mr Ali celebrated George Galloway’s victory in Rochdale despite him representing a different political party and has also called Israel a “terrorist state”.

He’s also appeared to give support to Houthi rebels attacking ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea and suggested they were following international law.

“Yemen hasn’t attacked the UK, it hasn’t attacked the US, what it has done is impose an embargo, it is actually following international law, it is upholding the genocide convention that we should be upholding.

“We should be on the side of righteousness and the side of justice. Sadly, we have sided with the oppressor and we are putting financial interests ahead of what’s morally correct. The UK, along with the US, has put the interest of the elite and the financial moguls ahead of the ordinary person.”

Mr Ali was approached for comment but had not responded at the time of publication.

He has previously said: “I have received hundreds of death threats from those on the far-Right and supporters of what the Israeli government is doing, many of which have been reported to the police. I understand very well the emotional turmoil threats of violence can have and would not wish that on others… the video in question has absolutely nothing to do with violence.”

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