Hackney votes to end 58-year Haifa twinning, citing “anti-racist values”

Hackney’s Green Party-led Council has voted to end its 58-year-old twin-city agreement with Haifa, a port city that “Israel” violently captured in 1948.

Councillors have upheld the vote as a commitment in their May 2026 local elections manifesto. They have pledged to end the twinning arrangement at “the earliest possible opportunity,” the details of which are under consideration.

The decision follows years of pressure by Palestine solidarity activists. The decades-long campaign involved a broad coalition of groups. These included the Greens, Stop the War, Hackney Independent Socialist Collective, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). The campaign gathered steam in 2024. At the time, a public petition calling out Israel’s repeated war crimes in Gaza and the occupation of the occupied West Bank received 4,000 signatures.

Tonight all the Green councillors voted to start the process of ending Hackney's twinning with Haifa. All the Labour councillors voted against. The Council will now: set up an all-party committee, consult residents, consult Haifa's Mayor & carry out an Equality Impact Assessment.

— Heather Mendick (@helensclegel) July 28, 2026

“At odds with our anti-racist values”

Hackney Council describes itself as an “actively anti-racist and human rights-respecting local authority,” and says “international partnerships remain relevant and reflect the shared values [of Hackney residents].” Councillor Sam Mathys, responsible for managing the twinning relationship has previously said that:

We want civic partnerships that are about fostering peace, justice, and equality […] For decades, we have witnessed human rights abuses committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, which has escalated to a horrifying and unprecedented scale over the past years.

Raising similar points, Hackney mayor, Zoe Garbett said:

Given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, and the gravity of the UN Commission of Inquiry Reports concluding Israel has committed genocide, maintaining a civic connection with what is widely recognised [as] a military port city is fundamentally at odds with our anti-racist values.”

The city that houses Elbit Systems

Haifa is promoted as a progressive, left-wing model of coexistence — the very rationale used to justify the Twin City agreement six decades ago. However, this isn’t the case. Haifa is one of three Palestinian coastal cities Israel has been occupying since 1948. It is also the site of the first Palestinian ghetto post-Nakba.

Since then, Haifa has functioned as a major logistical hub for seaborne military shipments. It hosts Israel’s main naval base and the headquarters of Elbit Systems Global. Elbit is the occupation’s largest privately owned arms manufacturer, and produces 85 percent of the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) land-based equipment and drones.

One might wonder how we got here? In 1948, 95 percent of Haifa’s indigenous Palestinian population were violently expelled by Zionist Haganah militiamen. Those Palestinians who survived the exterminationist campaign today face unparalleled discrimination across housing, employment, education and politics, and much more.

A survey published in May 2025 found that 82 percent of Jewish Israeli citizens supported the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. They also supported wanton killings of Gazans by the IOF. According to Orly Noy, former chair of B’Tselem, it will take “decades of rehabilitation” for Israeli society to rectify and undo these views.

Defenders of “Israel”

The decision, as is to be expected, has ruffled the feathers of Labour party members and affiliates. In 2024, the de-twinning was formally presented to the council. At the time, Labour councillor Michael Desmond described it as an “appalling, abusive tirade,” and defended the agreement as one which promotes:

cultural values, religious freedom, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

Labour councillor for Hoxton West, Ben Lucas said his party could not support the paper “in all good conscience.” He told the Greens they were punishing the “Israelis” for the actions of their government.

Conservative party councillor Simche Steinberger has also criticised the de-twinning decision. He cited medical exchanges between Hackney’s Homerton University Hospital and Haifa’s Rambam Hospital. At the debate, he said:

It’s probably the only twinning which actually does something because I remember a few years ago where the doctors from Haifa Hospital were here in Homerton teaching them what to do.

A license to kill

Rambam is the biggest Israeli hospital in northern Israel, situated 30 miles from the Lebanese border. For the past three decades there has been “medical cooperation” between these two hospitals. But this is not the type of medical cooperation you might expect, because Ramdam hospital also works closely with the IOF.

Ramdam not only treats tens of thousands of injured IOF, it also trains IOF doctors to treat soldiers who have killed and maimed civilians. This enables the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The IOF act with total impunity in both the West Bank and Gaza. They detain children, steal Palestinian land, control movement, raid homes, and prevent access of emergency services to the injured. They protect illegal armed settlers, and kill and maim innocent civilians.

Is this the culture of tolerance defenders of Israel have in mind when excusing the genocidal and racist conduct of the colonial-settler project?

Second class citizens

Sussan Rassoulie, a key proponent of the campaign and the leader of the 2024 petition, says there are multiple reasons why Hackney should not be twinned with Haifa. She underlines the second class treatment of Palestinians from Haifa and other cities in and outside of the West Bank. In addition, citing Israel’s 2018  Basic Law, Rassoulie reminds us that the occupation:

recently enacted, explicitly racist death penalty law, passed by the Knesset, also applies in Haifa.

In conversation with the Canary, Rassoulie has this to say:

Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomes Tuesday evening’s decision if it marks the start of a swift process to end a twinning relationship with Israel’s third largest city and principal military port. We hope that a move by Hackney’s now Green-led administration will encourage campaigners in other local authorities that may still have twinning relationships with cities or towns in a state engaged in a genocidal war in Gaza and pursuing a brutal policy of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Time to Isolate “Israel”

Various other towns and cities in England are also twinned with the Zionist state. Newcastle and Portsmouth are also twinned with Haifa in Northern “Israel,” while Bournemouth is twinned with the resort of Netanya. The borough of Barnet is twinned with the Tel Aviv neighbourhood of Ramat Gan. Meanwhile, the borough of Elstree and Borehamwood in Hertfordshire is twinned with the central town of Shoham.

It is time all ties with the genocidal state of “Israel” were broken, and the Israeli occupation is isolated on the world stage. They only help to legitimise and normalise its horrendous crimes against the Palestinians.

Hackney Council says it will now set up an all-party committee, consult residents, and carry out an Equality Impact Assessment. It has given Haifa’s mayor until 5 October to respond to the decision.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

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