When Kamel Hawwash retired from academia last year, he imagined a quieter life. Instead, he entered May’s local elections in Birmingham and made history. By winning a seat in Stirchley, Hawwash became the UK’s first councillor of Palestinian origin.
“The first thing that came into my mind was the fact that my father wasn’t around to see it, because I know how proud he would have been,” Hawaash tells The New Arab.
“To be elected as the first Palestinian in the UK is a huge honour.”
Soon after, the councillor began thinking about the responsibility he now has to the people who elected him, receiving emails from his residents and wanting to do as much as he could.
“It’s been quite a whirlwind week, but really tremendous honour, tremendous privilege, but a huge responsibility,” Hawwash shares.
Born to Palestinian parents, Hawwash recalls one of his earliest memories of the Palestinian cause, witnessing his mother crying, telling him that his grandmother’s land had been occupied.
The councillor also recalled an incident when he was deported from Palestine before he could set foot into his home country by Israeli forces in 2017.
“I realised sitting there, I could see my homeland out of the window, but I couldn’t walk onto it,” he recalls.
“Literally, it was a 10-metre walk, but we were not allowed by people who came and created a state for other people and denied us our rights.”
From joining UK’s largest Palestine advocacy group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to eventually serving as its chair for five years and seeing Fadwa Barghouti speak in the very same council house he now serves in, Hawwash understood that the Palestinian issue was just as much about politics as it was about advocacy.
“People who didn’t vote for me were beginning to say on social media, ‘but all he cares about is Palestine,’ but of course I do, that’s my origin,” Hawwash continues.
As Israel’s genocidal war rages on in Gaza, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed, and, along with a humanitarian crisis, the councillor asks to think about one thing: “There are Palestinian children in Gaza who were born either just before or during the attacks in Gaza who do not know what a home is. Just think about that.
“They do not know what a home is; they’ve only lived in tents that get blown off by the wind and so on. There are foods they’ve never seen or tasted or smelled.”
Inspired by Jeremy Corbyn, Hawwash joined the Labour Party when Corbyn was leader and immersed himself in politics.
However, the activist left in 2023 after its current leader, and now Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Israel had the right to cut off power and water from the Gaza Strip and stood as an independent in the 2024 elections.
“I thought, ‘I can’t stay in this party, I just cannot stay,'” Hawwash explained.
“If [Keir Starmer] sticks to international law, then he would be the first to say that what Israel has been doing has been war crimes, and that the UK should have stopped arming Israel and so on, but unfortunately, he didn’t.”
After placing fifth in the elections, Hawwash began discussions with the Green Party, which he joined just over six months ago, following an attempt to encourage growth in Corbyn and Sultana’s Your Party.
During his time as an independent, Hawwash realised he didn’t have many differences with the Greens, seeing it as a party with ideals similar to his own and as a democratic party where policy comes from the members, with no constraints.
“[The Green Party] aligns with my values, and I think the fact that it’s a democratic party is absolutely wonderful,” Hawwash said.
While Hawaash was adamant about standing in the next general elections, he accepted a Green Party member’s request to stand in the local elections.
“It was a team effort,” Hawwash says, noting the help from his campaign manager, Carla Charles, and the support from the Green Party.
“From not being a known person in the area, by the end of the campaign, if I walked down the street, people would recognise me, and they wanted change, and that’s quite important,” he adds.
The councillor also pointed out that his win was not only in a non-Muslim-majority area, but also in one that had been Labour-run for almost a decade, making it a significant victory.
“It is possible for people, even of Palestinian descent, to stand in areas which are not predominantly Muslim, for whom Palestine isn’t necessarily the first issue, though it still is in other areas,” Hawwash says.
“The fact that I managed to win is really very, very significant to overturn that majority, but to convince people that I’m somebody they can trust to look after their affairs as a councillor and to speak up for them in the council and in other areas.”
While Hawwash will always keep the Palestinian cause close to his heart, the councillor also notes the impact his achievements can have on the wider community.
“It is about the fact that we want people to get engaged in politics from the Arab and Muslim community, because you can win and you can be influential,” Hawwash tells The New Arab.
“I hope young people are looking and say, ‘well, if he can do it at his age, there’s hope for us to try and do the same thing.'”
Since the win, Hawwash has officially been sworn in as Stirchley’s councillor, as well as taking on the mantle as the Birmingham Greens’ Deputy Leader.
Thinking about what’s next, the councillor also points out issues that need to be addressed in his ward, understanding that his first job is to serve the people who elected him.
“We’ve had a bin strike for more than a year, when you drive your car, there are probably more potholes in one year that I’ve seen, that I’ve never seen before, pollution, green spaces, people struggling to get housing, so there are lots of issues, in addition to the Palestinian issue that I would continue to work on,” Hawwash says.
“It’s a wonderful, wonderful time to be in the council and hoping to bring these policies into action.”
Anam Alam is a staff writer at The New Arab. She frequently writes about human rights and social issues, including women’s rights and sex education
Follow her on X: @itsanamalam
