The death threats came thick and fast at the modest home near Leeds University where Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch lives with his wife Nava and their two small children. 'We're coming for him,' went one of the more sinister calls.
When I stumbled upon the social media feeds of Green Party election candidate Mothin Ali, I couldn't believe my eyes.
He spent three months with his regiment in the Israeli Defence Forces before returning to the UK in January. 'Tell that Jewish son of a b***h we're coming for him,' went one of the more sinister late-night telephone calls, picked up by Nava at midnight. A third caller, who like the two previous ones was male and spoke with a Yorkshire accent, promised: 'Us Muslims are coming for you, you dirty Zionist mother****ers.'
The online rant was notable for the utterly dehumanising way in which it described the Jewish chaplain, saying his 'contract should be terminated with immediate effect' and he ought to be 'prosecuted for war crimes'. In an increasingly frenzied tirade, the video added that the rabbi had been 'massacring people' before concluding that the 'far-Right radical' is 'radicalising students,' meaning that 'Leeds University should dismiss him urgently. He's absolutely disgusting. He's shameful'.
Ali, a 42-year-old father of three from Roundhay, Leeds, who describes himself as 'an accountant by day and an Islamic teacher at night', did nothing to discourage or hide the vile outpouring of anti-Semitism, or to dial down the nature of the debate his hateful video had kicked off. READ MORE: Revealed: Green councillor who yelled 'Allahu Akbar' on election night appeared on Marcus Wareing BBC cooking show two years ago - as party launches probe after he said Palestinians had right to 'fight back' in wake of Hamas attacks
My lengthy message included links to several of his most vile social media posts, along with quotations of the ugliest bits, which had sparked criticism from, among others, the Campaign Against anti-Semitism, and the Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitic hate crime. Corry's message included a rambling official comment from Ali, in which he disingenuously claimed to be a victim, saying: '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.
'Just to confirm,' I wrote, 'the Green Party is totally happy for someone who used the terms that Mothin Ali used in that video – 'creep', 'low-life', 'animal' etc – to now stand for election?
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