UK Green party adopts ‘Zionism is racism’ policy
The UK’s left-wing Green party on Sunday voted to define Zionism as racism at the party’s annual get-together, drawing sharp backlash from British Jewish groups and the Israeli government. Members of the Green party, which has five MPs in Britain’s 650-seat parliament and which enjoyed a boost in recent local and special elections, backed the motion at the party’s conference, with 1,022 votes in favour and 813 against. For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
According to the motion, Zionism would be “treated as any other form of racism” and the party supports the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine.” “This has been a serious and deeply felt debate within our membership,” a Green spokesperson said. The Greens have enjoyed a surge in popularity under the charismatic leadership of Zack Polanski, attracting voters dissatisfied with the center-left Labor government’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
However, Polanski’s popularity has taken a hit in recent months, polls show, following several missteps. “This motion would make the Green Party the first electorally significant UK political party in living memory to adopt what appears to be an overtly antisemitic political platform,” three Jewish community groups said in a letter to the party ahead of the vote. “We also emphasized the implications for the safety and welfare of all British Jews,” the heads of the Board of Deputies, Community Security Trust and Jewish Leadership Council warned.
Left out here: Leaves out what changes the picture
The article never gives the motion's own definition of Zionism or its explicit caveat that anti-Zionism should not be equated with antisemitism. Without it, a reader who has just read the claim of an 'overtly antisemitic political platform' believes the motion makes no distinction between Jews and a political project.
How we know
- The Independent reported“while caveating that anti-Zionism should not be equated with antisemitism”Green Party members pass ‘Zionism is racism’ motion (opens in a new tab)
- Our analysis“the real, material, manifestation of Zionism has been the historic and ongoing dehumanisation, displacement, dispossession, disenfranchisement and destruction of Palestinians”The papers wrote 447 articles on the Greens' Zionism vote. Israel, pro-Israel groups and the Chief Rabbi got 12,133 words. Palestinians got 3,173.
Israel’s foreign ministry said the policy went “far beyond the boundaries of legitimate political debate.” “Every political party in Britain, first and foremost the governing Labor Party, must unequivocally reject this twisted resolution,” Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, called the Green party’s decision “a disgrace.” “Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and it forms the basis for the Jewish people’s right to a state and a national home in the Land of Israel,” Herzog said on X. The motion laid bare divisions in the party with Polanski -- who is currently running to become an MP in former prime minister Keir Starmer’s London constituency -- skipping the vote.
Despite at least three out of five Green MPs opposing the motion, Polanski said earlier this week that the “displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people” was “clearly racism.” United Nations investigators have accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the war in Gaza, a finding that Israel has rejected. Read more: Israeli gov’t response to UK-led embargo ‘childish and extreme’: Former Israeli PM Advertisement Advertisement
Read the original article on english.alarabiya.net (opens in a new tab)