The Green Party of the United Kingdom could tear itself asunder at next week’s party conference, where a vocal sub-group will put forward a motion declaring “Zionism is racism” and calling for a single Palestinian state.
Greens 4 Palestine, a faction within the Green Party, has successfully pushed the motion to the top of the conference agenda. Members will now vote whether to affirm the motion, which would declare the Green Party an “anti-Zionist party” and that “Israel is an apartheid State committing genocide.”
“We affirm that definitions of anti-Jewish discrimination should not equate Jewish identity with Zionist ideology or political practice,” the motion states, emphasizing that it is intended to divorce the issue from ordinary Jews. “As with any ethnicity or faith group, no single political ideology should be ascribed to an entire people.”
The motion would also formalize that the Green Party “supports the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital, equal rights for all, and the right of return for Palestinians and their descendants.” It was previously slated for the party’s spring conference but was not heard due to technical difficulties.
“There is one Zionism and that is the Zionism we’ve seen murdering and ethnically cleansing Palestinians in occupied Palestine for nearly 80 years,” Greens 4 Palestine said Thursday on social media. “Opposition to settler colonialism should be a baseline for any person on the left. Zionism is Racism.”
However, even within the party, there are concerns that the language of the motion could cause confusion and alienate voters.
Jewish Greens, another sub-group within the Green Party, previously released a statement urging faction members to oppose the motion in the ultimately aborted February vote.
“This is not your run-of-the-mill motion opposing Israel’s actions (something that Jewish Greens would have no problem with), but something much more problematic that is likely to make Jews feel unwelcome in the Green Party,” the Jewish Greens said in February. “We urge Green Party members to listen to their Jewish comrades within the party, and consider whether this motion is appropriate for the type of party they want to be in.”
Calling Zionism an “exceptionally vague ideology,” the Jewish Greens contested that “for many Jewish people Zionism is less a well-defined ideology, and more of a sense that Jews should have a place that they call home, where they are no longer a persecuted minority, as they have been for millennia.”
But their position has changed over the past several months, and the faction now states it does “not have a collective position” on the motion.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski has found himself between a rock and a hard place as the vote approaches. He is being forced to navigate this intra-party politicking as he tries to focus on winning an election to replace former Prime Minister Keir Starmer as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras.
Polanski, who is Jewish, has been an outspoken critic of Israel and has affirmed the belief that Israeli treatment of Palestinians amounts to genocide.
“If you’re defining Zionism as a displacement genocide — which is how, in practice, Zionism has become — then that is racism,” he told a crowd in Holborn and St Pancras on Thursday while speaking at a Jewish community center.
Polanski has previously declared himself an “anti-Zionist” and said equating the Israeli government with the worldwide Jewish community is “making ourselves as Jewish people less safe.”
He claims he is “not decided” on how he will vote next week, but criticized the current text of the motion as a “distraction” that is “unhelpful” to the party’s broader aim of Palestinian liberation.
“I think there’s something impractical about a political party deciding to label what Zionism is or what exactly needs to happen as a result,” he told commentators Mehdi Hasan and Shehab Khan during a live interview last month. “I think ultimately what it does is create a distraction and a conversation where both the party and pro-Palestinian activists and anyone who cares about peace and justice can be attacked.”
He also expressed discomfort with the proposition for a single Palestinian state, arguing that there is “something quite imperial” about a British political party prescribing a political future for the region.
Polanski has sought to position his party as an insurgent replacement for the center-left Labour Party. It is running a radical campaign with policies such as total legalization for all narcotics, decriminalizing prostitution, and expanding voting rights to include 16-year-olds and noncitizen residents.
Earlier this year, Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer secured an upset victory in the constituency of Gorton and Denton — a longstanding Labour stronghold.
The party heavily catered to the growing Islamic population of Gorton and Denton with campaign materials distributed in Urdu, overtures in support of Palestinians, and the banging of war drums against conservative parties it called “Islamophobic.”
Greens took several more scalps from Starmer’s beleaguered Labour Party in councils across England during the May local elections.
Opposition to Israel and support for the Palestinians remains the de facto core of the Green platform.
Two Green Party candidates were arrested earlier this year on charges of fostering racial hatred after police said they posted images to social media praising Hamas militants, defending a vehicular attack on a synagogue, and accusing Israel of orchestrating 9/11 as a false flag attack.
