Green Party at a Crossroads After the Zionism Motion
A former Green co-leader says the party is at a “crossroads” and should return to its “core values”, weeks after members adopted a motion defining Zionism as a form of racism. The current leader replied that there is “no environmental justice without social, racial and economic justice”.
This is the internal reckoning after the external one we reported on 26 October, when the Board of Deputies of British Jews voted by 118 to one to declare the party “a racist party”. The former co-leader’s argument is electoral rather than moral: the Greens need policies that can command a majority to deliver “the environmental changes that we need”, and should avoid being “quite divisive”. Asked directly whether Zionism is racist, he said no. The motion, adopted last month by members in England and Wales, defined it as an ideology supporting “an ethnonationalist Jewish state” responsible for the “disenfranchisement and destruction” of Palestinians, and backed a single Palestinian state across all of historic Palestine, which includes Israel. The leader was fighting a by-election and did not vote; he says he would not have, yet declines to overturn it. He is neither calling for the leader to go nor leaving himself. Three consequences are concrete: Labour will end council power-sharing unless Green councillors disown the policy, the equality watchdog has written seeking information, and Israel has barred the leader, who is Jewish, from entering.