The adoption by the Green Party conference yesterday of the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion is a serious and deeply offensive outcome.
An overwhelming majority of British Jews, regardless of their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have now been told by the party that they are racists. They are not simply being shut out of a political party; they are being asked to dissociate themselves from organised Jewish life in order to pass what is effectively an ‘acceptability test’.
Zionism is a fiercely debated and contested word. But for most British Jews, belief in Jewish peoplehood and self-determination is core to their Jewish identity, and this is what they understand to be the basic premise of Zionism. It is why when Jews attend synagogue they pray facing Jerusalem, and why the concept of ‘Zion’ has been at the heart of Jewish communal life for two millennia.
Telling Jews they are acceptable only if they give up that understanding of collective Jewish identity, is not, as some have sought to explain it away, an attack on a political ideology. It is an attack on Jewish identity.
That is why, for most Jews across the political spectrum, yesterday’s vote is deeply offensive and alienating. Jews do not need a political party to define Jewish identity on their behalf. In any other context, a party telling a minority community what its identity may and may not include would be recognised, without controversy, as racist.
To be clear: there is a legitimate conversation to be had about the modern state of Israel, its policies and those of its successive governments, and the impact they have had on the lives and identity of Palestinians.
Yesterday’s motion is not that conversation. It is a blunt tool that does the opposite of encouraging legitimate debate. It alienates Jews regardless of their views on the conflict or on Israel more widely, and it hands ammunition to those who want to paint all pro-Palestinian activism as illegitimate. Instead of focusing the discussion on the real issues at hand: dispossession, violence and deep insecurity, the conversation has yet again been reduced to a war of words that will change nothing.
Yachad will continue to work to build the conditions for policy change that makes a real difference on the ground. Yesterday’s motion has only made that work harder.