Zionism is racism

Ahead of this week’s by-election, triggered by the resignation of former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as a lawmaker and contested by Green Party leader Zack Polanski, a heated debate ensued over the Green Party’s “Zionism is racism” motion, which was passed at the party conference last weekend despite earlier warnings from most of the very few Green lawmakers about the dangers of taking such a “radical” position. The position must indeed have been radical in the eyes of the political and media elite, judging by the furore that has greeted the Green Party since its adoption. Polanski has been personally attacked and accused of failing to show “moral leadership” by allowing the motion to go through. Even some supporters expressed disappointment, essentially arguing that it was a strategic mistake to appear that radical, with one campaigner calling the vote “a monumental own goal.”

Among the harshest critics of the motion was the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its statement read that “the Green Party in Britain ceased to act as a political party and became a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism,” and it demanded that “every political party in Britain, first and foremost the governing Labour Party… unequivocally reject this twisted resolution.” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid shared the same contempt, charging the Green Party with the crime of “siding with terrorists and antisemites.” Inside Israel, there has been near unanimity in the reaction, as there often is over what happens in Gaza.

Surely, it would take credible critics to make the criticism effective. That is exactly why the Guardian has been tasked with publishing numerous articles by friendly figures like Jonathan Freedland, who described the motion as “yet another attempt to tell Jews how we should think.” Freedland extends no such sympathy to Palestinians, who are not only told how they should think, but are so often killed in the most horrific ways. His sympathies remain utterly in the abstract, and his aversion to “unconventional ideas” betrays a certain bias. He regrets that calls for “an amendment that might allow Jews to go to synagogue” were rejected, though such an amendment would have been entirely unnecessary, as there is obviously nothing in the motion that suggests any religious belief or activity is racist and to be banished.

But the real genius of Freedland’s argument lies in this: he can argue persuasively that “the Greens are more extreme than mainstream Palestinian opinion – they’re saying violence is now legitimate.” If the standard was mainstream Israeli opinion instead, their position would hardly have been considered off the charts, of course, for the notion that “violence is now legitimate” has been pretty much the consensus within Israel for at least the last three years, according to multiple polls.

Not everyone was as friendly, however. Labour Party lawmaker Mike Tapp led a group of 8 other lawmakers who wrote to Sussex police about “potential antisemitic offenses being committed at the Green Party conference in Brighton.” They urged the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to seek “an investigation into potential breaches of the Equality Act.” The last time Tapp made his presence felt in British political life was when he went on such a radical anti-immigration frenzy that he was widely given credit for outperforming even the most extreme elements of Reform U.K. This week, he decided to seize the moment once again, only a little while after Starmer’s stepping down as prime minister.

Notably, even the European Greens distanced themselves from the Green Party’s “radical” position. Attempts to portray it as a hateful and extremist organization have been as plentiful as they have been ridiculous. And they seem to have worked, at least to a degree, as even some of the Green Party’s natural supporters recommended “nuance.” Zionism, they said, could mean different things to different people. And that is certainly true, but quite irrelevant in this case, for the motion defines Zionism explicitly to dispel any confusion, clearly showing that it has nothing to do with Jews going to synagogues, contrary to Freedland’s exaggerated interpretation.

Still, the entire political and media elite in Britain persist in painting the Green Party’s “Zionism is racism” motion as a “dark development.” Perhaps they hope this will bring Polanski down in the by-election on Thursday and that it will be the end of the “Green menace.” These arbiters of political respectability are mute, however, when Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli, who is known for boasting of the rise of the “far-right” in Europe and across the West, responds to independent lawmaker Zarah Sultana’s affirmation of the Green Party’s motion by reminding everyone that “Zarah Sultana is not a British name” and that Israel has “zero expectations from Pakistan.”

Those whose memories are slightly longer may fear history repeating itself, remembering the hysteria on similar grounds that surrounded former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2018. A win for Polanski in the by-election, though unlikely, would nevertheless make it rather harder to dismiss the Greens as politically irrelevant – and rather easier to understand why their critics have been so eager to do so.