Zarah Sultana comes out swinging against bogus antisemitism smears

Zarah Sultana has come at swinging at the depressingly inevitable accusations of anti-Semitism. As the Canary’s Joe Glenton reported just yesterday, Sultana had an incredibly frank interview where she set out her assessment of the Jeremy Corbyn years, and what needs to change.

As right-wing media began their attempts to spin her remarks, she was refreshingly abrupt on her own social media:

The smears won’t work this time.

I say it loudly and proudly: I’m an anti-Zionist.

Print that. https://t.co/HSZAWnO4cJ

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) August 17, 2025

It’s a renowned tactic of Israeli propaganda to accuse those objecting to the fascism of Zionism as actually being anti-Semitic. However, Sultana quickly nipped that shit in the bud:

The fact that Oliver Kamm, an Oxford-educated journalist for The Times has since deleted his tweet accusing Sultana of anti-Semitism speaks volumes.

Zarah Sultana stands firm

It would appear that Zarah Sultana’s direct approach is stopping the smears in their tracks. Journalist Asa Winstanley praised the route one approach:

This is a historically important tweet.

Members of the “Your Party” initiative — the refugees of Corbynism — have been crying out for this sort of combative approach for years. https://t.co/VsK4Rvew1A

— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) August 18, 2025

And, as Sultana herself said:

Legacy media are not our allies. They are the mouthpiece of the ruling class.

And how many of them have spoken out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the direct targeting of Palestinian journalists?

You cannot give these people an inch.

Their smears won’t work this time.

Actor Sean Biggerstaff backed the firm strategy:

If @zarahsultana sets up a legal fund to go after every single one of these lowlifes, I'll be setting up a standing order. pic.twitter.com/Umy7HYrThc

— Sean Biggerstaff (@Seanchuckle) August 18, 2025

Journalist Matt Kennard pointed out the absurdity of only having one MP declare themselves an anti-Zionist publicly:

Britain has 1,480 parliamentarians

Only 1 of them – one – has come out as an anti-Zionist

Her name is Zarah Sultana

This has to be 1st rock of an avalanche

Zionism is a hyper violent settler-colonial ideology predicated on the destruction of the indigenous people of Palestine

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) August 18, 2025

As British as Zionism

As disgraceful as this statistic around Zarah Sultana is, it is also something that is a testament to the rot of British colonialism.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration is widely seen as one of the primary facilitators of the 1948 Nakba where Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. And, the declaration has been a vital step in the creation of the Zionist state of Israel. As Al Jazeera’s Zena Al Tahhan explains:

Earlier drafts of the document used the phrase “the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish State”, but that was later changed.

In a meeting with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann in 1922, however, Arthur Balfour and then-Prime Minister David Lloyd George reportedly said the Balfour Declaration “always meant an eventual Jewish state”.

Britain’s role in the creation of the contemporary genocidal Zionist state of Israel is central. The claim, then, that to oppose Zionism is to be anti-Semitic is not only empty rhetoric, it is profoundly ignorant and wrong-headed.

In fact, Arthur Balfour, the architect of the declaration, was what Muhannad Hariri of the The Electronic Intifada called:

an unapologetic anti-Semite.

Hariri explains:

In 1905, he [Balfour] supported laws to restrict migration into Britain – laws that were largely anti-Jewish in focus. Once he met Weizmann, however, Balfour felt that Zionist plans for a home in the Middle East might nicely cohere with British interests both domestically – to keep Jewish people out of Britain – and internationally – as the English sought to keep the French far from their colonial territories.

By turning Palestine into a home for Jewish people after world war two, Balfour:

understood that Britain’s interests coincided with those of the Zionist party on the question of establishing a state in Palestine.

His aim was not to keep Jewish people safe or protected; his aim was to keep them away from Britain.

Face your front

In this context, Zarah Sultana’s comments are even braver than they first appear. The criticism of a media establishment who parrot Zionist propaganda are insultingly ignorant. But, they’re more than that. They’re an extension of a foundationally British relationship to Zionism that weaponises Jewish identity as strategic political leverage: never actually for the benefit of Jewish communities.

Sultana’s approach is a breath of fresh air. And, it’s a stark contrast to the reticence and politeness of the last Corbyn era. Corbyn’s apparent unwillingness to confront the smears of antisemitism was a product of a belief in the establishment. The idea that eventually, truth will prevail. Sultana, evidently, as a woman of colour who faces sexism and misogyny every day knows better because she’s had to know better.

Nothing will teach you the harsh lessons about how truth is immaterial to the corporate media quicker than the raw reality of living in a sickening swirl of racism and misogyny.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Sky News