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 Greens, which has five members 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.
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.
Later, the party issued a joint statement by Leader Zack Polanski, its co-deputy leaders and five MPs noting that it will not tolerate discrimination.
“We will continue to stand in opposition to genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and the illegal occupation,” the statement reads. “We will continue to call out the heinous crimes of the Netanyahu government, and we will continue to work to ensure that the Green Party is an anti-racist party in every way.
It adds, “We know there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people.”
The Greens have enjoyed a surge in popularity under Polanski’s charismatic leadership, attracting voters dissatisfied with the centre-left Labour government’s stance on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. 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 emphasised 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.
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 Labour Party, must unequivocally reject this twisted resolution,” it said.
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.
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