The Green Party conference vote to treat Zionism “as any other form of racism” has caused turmoil within the party, and been roundly condemned as an attack on the Jewish community in Britain.
Jubilant chants of “Free Palestine” could be heard outside the Brighton conference hall after the vote, which the UK’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has called “poisonous antisemitism” that is “a threat to British Jews and to Britain”. There is a now a “genuine fear” among some Jewish members of the party, said The Guardian.
‘Taken over by zealots’
“This radical turn in official Green Party policy underscores the grim transformation that has taken place since Zack Polanski became its leader,” said The Times’ editorial board. It is veering “unnervingly close to open hostility towards the people of Israel and to Jewish interests”.
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Zionism is the simple belief “in a Jewish national home in some portion of historic Palestine”, said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian. A large majority of British Jews identify as Zionist, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, as does “every synagogue, or synagogue movement, in Britain and indeed the world”. As the Greens do not admit members of racist organisations, there is now an official blanket ban on Jews, whether they are right-wing ethno-nationalists or left-wing advocates of a two-state solution. This vote betrays a “deep ignorance of what the word Zionism means” and “a wilful misunderstanding of Jews and Judaism”.
“To blame all Israelis – all Zionists, indeed – for atrocities against Palestinians and to seek to punish them as a group is unjust”, said The Economist’s editorial board. The Greens’ new policy goes so far as to endorse “the destruction of Israel”, to be replaced by a Palestinian state “possibly run by the murderers of Hamas”. This is “a damning moment for a political party with pretensions to power”. Polanski “needs to grasp that his movement has been taken over by zealots” and lead an effort to take the party back.
‘Strategic mistake’
A “sizeable group” within the party see the vote – which passed by 1,022 votes to 813 – as a “strategic mistake” that will both “alienate potential voters” and “be the only thing the party is asked about” for months to come, said Meghan Kenyon in The New Statesman.
Deputy leader Mothin Ali is known to have voted for Sunday’s motion but four of the party’s five MPs – Ellie Chowns, Sian Berry, and former leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer – publicly rejected it. MP Hannah Spencer did not reveal how she voted but posted on Instagram that she was “proud to be part of a party committed to Jewish rights, and Palestinian rights”. Former MP and party leader Caroline Lucas spoke against the motion, condemning it as “divisive” and reliant on an “over-simplification” of complex issues.
Two attempts to water down the motion, both backed by Polanski, failed. Polanski, who is Jewish, has since has been banned from Israel, and the country’s foreign ministry have accused the Greens of legitimising “the elimination” of Israel “through armed struggle”.
Criticism of the Israeli government, demands for an end to war and occupation, and calls for Palestinian freedom “are all legitimate”, said David Davidi-Brown of the New Israel Fund UK, in Prospect. But how can a party that defines Zionism as racism “protect members who attend UK synagogues”? Just as “those who care about Israel must stop treating every anti-Zionist is an enemy”, so “those who oppose Zionism must stop treating every Zionist as a racist”.
