The “Zionism is Racism” motion, to be debated at the Green Party conference in Brighton on 2–4 October, and the literature produced to support it, are deeply troubling.
At its most basic, Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to self-determination. Defining that belief as racist is not a critique of Israel or of its government’s policies. It brands the national aspirations of the Jewish people as inherently racist. It means that any Jew who holds that belief, which the vast majority of Jews do in some form, will not be welcome in the Green Party. Not only that, they would be considered by the party to be racist.
The booklet distributed in support of the motion asserts an “inalienable right” to armed struggle, yet there is no mention in either the motion or the booklet of Hamas or the atrocities of 7 October, when civilians were murdered, abused and taken hostage – acts which are unjustifiable and illegal under international humanitarian law. To assert a right to violence while staying silent on the most devastating attack on Israeli civilians in the country’s history is incendiary and deeply insulting.
It also offers no path to a better future. It endorses the same cycles of violence and reprisal that have served no one and pushed Israelis and Palestinians ever further from a diplomatic resolution.
It is entirely legitimate for political parties to oppose the devastation of Gaza, which has wrought unimaginable suffering on its civilian population, along with the relentless expansion of settlements and settler violence in the West Bank. Yachad has long campaigned for an end to the occupation and for Britain to act. Most recently, we supported the government’s decision to ban trade with illegal settlements and to significantly expand sanctions on those entrenching the occupation.
But a vision that affirms one people’s right to self-determination while denouncing the others’ will do nothing to serve the people of the region.
It stands in stark contrast to the Foreign Secretary’s statement to Parliament on 8 September. He set out the most far-reaching action any British government has taken against the occupation, declaring it unlawful and going as far as to call the actions of violent settlers ethnic cleansing. But in the same statement, he condemned Hamas’s atrocities without qualification and reaffirmed Israel’s right to security. He showed that it is possible to be unflinching about Palestinian rights without denying Jewish ones.
The Green Party should stand with the growing international coalition acting against the occupation, not with a position that deepens division here at home and offers nothing to those seeking peace on the ground. There is a different path: one that confronts occupation, settlement expansion and Palestinian dispossession while defending rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in freedom, dignity and security. That is the political resolution Yachad has long advocated, and it is one that British political parties should be working toward, not abandoning.