More rational thinking on the Greens
JVL Introduction
On 10th October we published a compilation of rational reactions to the Green Party passing the Zionism is Racism motion.
AS one commentator remarked: “So the only contributions regarded as ‘rational’ and worthy of a place here come from people supporting the Green Party ZiR motion ‘Zionism is Racism’!”
It’s a fair cop!
We post below some of the rational reactions by those who opposed the motion on various grounds both before and after it was passed.
Let us stress that, whatever the divisions around the motion itself, there is overwhelming agreement on all sides of the debate within the Greens that the Israeli state is an apartheid state, and that its Zionism today is both genocidal and racist.
There is an overwhelming desire across the party to do what it can to call out and stop the genocide and British government complicity in it. To that end, there is cross-party support for a policy of BDS including an immediate embargo on all arms trade and the cessation of all military collaboration with Israel.
The argument is about strategy, how the Green party can best contribute to the accomplishment of largely agreed aims.
To that end we also post an alternative motion submitted to Conference but which fell and was therefore not debated when Zionism is Racism was passed. It exemplifies another approach.
More rational thinking on the Greens
Robert Cohen, Facebook, 5 October 2026
I’m a Jewish Anti-Zionist. This is why I think the Green Party is wrong to say “Zionism is Racism”
There’s a great deal to say about this. I’m not going to cover all of it here. But I want to make one contribution that I’m not seeing expressed elsewhere.
Saying ‘Zionism is Racism’ is wrong for the same reason that saying ‘Zionism is no more than the belief in Jewish self-determination in our ancestral homeland’ is also wrong.
Both assertions are true. But both assertions are incomplete.
It’s the incompleteness that causes the political and ethical problems in both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian advocacy. Both positions flatten history and deny Palestinian and Jewish real-world experience and motivations.
For Palestinians, Zionism has been experienced as a claim to Jewish supremacy in the Holy Land which has led to ethnic cleansing, apartheid, second class citizenship, and since October 2023, a genocide in Gaza. For Palestinians this is Zionism in practice. They are not wrong.
It can be argued (as I would) that the root cause of this Palestinian experience is to be found within the ideological formation of Jewish political Zionism at the end of the 19th century. That doesn’t mean it was inevitable. History could have taken different paths at different points in the story. But once Zionism became a Jewish state building project, the potential for endless conflict was the most likely outcome.
The Zionism created by Theodor Herzl certainly owed something to Judaism. Which is why claiming Zionism has nothing to do with being Jewish doesn’t work. The historical, religious and cultural ties to the biblical Land of Israel are real and highly significant in understanding both Judaism itself and collective Jewish identity. But Herzl’s thinking was far more influenced by 19th century European ethnic nationalism and the racism embedded in imperial colonialism than he was by Judaism. There are good reasons why most rabbis rejected Zionism until after the Holocaust.
Zionism was a settler colonial project rooted in European ideas of exceptionalism. But it was also a genuine attempt to find an answer to antisemitism, especially in Eastern Europe where Zionism found its initial Jewish support. Zionism was settler colonialism carried out by the ‘wretched’ of Europe not by its kings and emperors. Of course, the project needed imperial backing (from Britain) to give it any chance of success. And Britain clearly saw for itself the imperial benefits of supporting Zionism.
Bringing things up to the present, asserting baldly and without caveats that ‘Zionism is Racism’ ignores the Jewish understanding and experience of Zionism (safety, self-determination, a homeland after the Nazi destruction of two-thirds of European Jews). It also fails to acknowledge that for a great many Jews today, support for the existence of a Jewish state has become central to their Jewish identity along with and deeply connected to remembrance of the Holocaust. How ever much I, or other supporters of Palestinian rights, might want to detach Zionism from Judaism, the Jewish experience of the 20th century has fused them together. Undoing this union is a painful and slow project. Especially, when antisemitism is on the rise.
The Jewish experience in Europe in no way justifies what happened to the Palestinian people after 1948. But leaving Jewish history out of the equation will doom any attempt to address the injustices suffered by the Palestinian people.
Saying Zionism is racism is no more helpful than saying Zionism is a righteous endeavour.
We don’t need simplistic binary thinking or lazy good versus evil rhetoric to get us out of this tragedy. And that’s why I think the Green Party has got this wrong.
See also Robert Cohen’s moving pinned post from 3 March 2025 To be a Jew in solidarity with Gaza
Peter Tatchell on Facebook, 5 October 2026
I’ve been a Green Party member for 22 years. I have supported Palestinian rights for 54 years. The Green Party conference narrowly passed the motion, “Zionism is racism”.
This may result in a significant fall in public support for the Green Party; particularly given the way it is being spun by much of the media & Labour. It is not anti-Jewish but can be perceived as such because of careless wording eg no condemnation of antisemitism. This could undo the recent huge successes of the Greens. I doubt most Green Party members support all elements of the motion.
It was passed as a result of an organised campaign by key people who had no significant history of support for the Greens. Some openly declared they do not care if the motion results in the Greens losing votes & seats. It might cost Zack Polanski the Holborn & St Pancras by-election if the vote is tight.
I am disappointed that Zack failed to speak out more clearly & publicly against the troubling aspects of the motion.
I agree with the motion in almost all respects but it is problematic in THREE ways.
FIRST: It demands that Israel is replaced by a single democratic secular Palestinian state with equal rights for Jews & Arabs. That’s a laudable long term goal but it is NOT the policy of Palestinian leaders such as Marwan Barghouti & the majority of Palestinian people. They support a two-state solution. The motion smacks of “westerners know best.” Greens should not tell Palestinians what to do!
SECOND: The motion also bluntly suggests all “Zionism is racism”. But there are two types of Zionism:
1) a legitimate Jewish liberation & self-determination movement against antisemitic oppression, such as the fight against Tsarist pogroms & the struggle of Jewish partisan militias against Nazism.
2) an oppressive Jewish supremacist movement that ethnically cleanses Palestinians.
The motion fails to distinguish between these two different forms of Zionism. The former is valid, the latter is not.
THIRD: It includes no condemnation of antisemitism to reassure the Jewish community & to distance this motion from the antisemitism of Hamas.
This motion will not do anything to aid the Palestinian cause. Practical aid should be the first priority: non-violent Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions on Israel
Caroline Lucas on Facebook, 5 October
Conference speech, 4 October 2026
I’m so deeply sad this motion passed at conference.
Here’s what I said in my two minute speech.
I speak as someone long been committed to the Palestinian cause. I’ve visited the West Bank three times and Gaza once. I served for many years as a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
I view the Israeli government as racist, I believe its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and I support the BDS campaign. And yet I remain firmly opposed to this motion.
The political Zionist movement emerged as a direct response to persecution within Europe. So for European Jews it wasn’t always ideology, that propelled them to Israel – often they were simply fleeing for their lives after centuries of persecution, culminating in the horror of the Holocaust.
That doesn’t justify the appalling treatment of the Palestinians. Nothing possibly could. But it explains why, for many European Jews, Zionism was historically a response to racism. It also explains why, for Palestinians, losing their land and sometimes their lives, Zionism was and remains a violent settler-colonial project, exclusionary and yes, racist, resulting in their expulsion and ongoing statelessness.
Two things can both be true.
Conference, I urge you not to support the over-simplification at the heart of this motion – a refusal to accept complexities which is leading to so many Jewish members feeling scared and unwelcome in our party.
You’ve heard how this motion will actually undermine our efforts in support of the Palestinian cause. Let’s instead focus on the vast areas where we do agree and where we can be effective.
Showing our solidarity by challenging even more loudly the genocide by the Israeli government. Not by alienating the very many Jewish people who share our horror, and who are out partners in this endeavour.
E03: Building a Consensus in Support for Palestinian Liberation
Synopsis:
This motion seeks to find a unifying position within the party on policy to end
impunity for Israel, condemn its racist, ethnonationalist basis, and build steps
towards a free Palestine.
Motion text
Enter into Record of Policy Statements:
The Green Party affirms its position that the state of Israel is an
ethnonationalist state manifesting in and characterised by apartheid, racism,
ethnic cleansing and genocide. All pressure needs to be urgently brought to bear
to dismantle the structures of this discriminatory state.
We recognise that a hostile media and political establishment seek to undermine
criticism of Israel’s actions and conflate it with antisemitism in order to
marginalise those campaigning for a free Palestine and to protect the mutually
beneficial relationship between the West and Israel, a relationship propped up
by our own Western dependence on fossil fuels.
The Green Party condemns both antisemitism and any attempts to conflate it with
criticism of Israel or of Zionism. We also reject any attempt to accept,
dismiss, deny or undervalue the racist subjugation and oppression of
Palestinians. We deplore the UK Government’s use of Jewish security as a
pretence for recent crackdowns on the right to protest. We recognise that anti-
Palestinian racism has unique features, is systemic – both in the UK and under
Israeli apartheid – and must end.
Zionism’s roots lie in the traumatic antisemitism of the late 19th and early
20th Century but now, in combination with the colonial acts of the UK and
others, largely manifests itself in ethno-supremacist, nationalist expansionism.
While many hold views of Zionism as a concept of a safe Jewish space, the Green
Party seeks to support and build alternatives that provide Jewish safety outside
of this framework. In a world where both antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks
are on the rise, the party stands in solidarity with all oppressed peoples.
The Green Party reiterates our broad support for Palestinian liberation and
rejects all iterations of ethnonationalism worldwide.
Therefore, the Green Party:
- Endorses the Palestinian people’s right to resistance and to liberation
from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation, and acknowledges the
legitimacy of its struggle to achieve that liberation by all available
means under international law. It will always advocate for non-violent
solutions, wherever possible.
- Condemns the ongoing military expansionism of Israel and the encroachment
of the IDF into Lebanon and Syria.
- Recognises the right to self-determination of its inhabitants, supports
all progress towards equality, peace and justice in historic Palestine,
and affirms its position that any solution must be one made and accepted
by those who live there for their common future between the Jordan and the
Mediterranean.
- Believes this must be created on a basis of equity for all and rejects
dominance by any ethnic group. Any long-term solution must include the
right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. It must
remove power imbalances and deliver safety for all.
- Reaffirms its call for the end of the Israeli Law of Return (1950) which
gives any Jew in the world the legal right to go to Israel and
automatically acquire citizenship. This is inherently discriminatory and
must be repealed in order to establish equity for all. (See: IP624)
- Reaffirms its existing endorsement of the call from Palestinian civil
society to impose broad economic and cultural boycotts and implement
divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South
Africa in the apartheid era, and calls upon the United Kingdom Government
to impose full embargoes and sanctions against Israel. This includes
legislation to ensure key Israeli export goods are excluded from any part
of the supply chain. This will prevent third party countries being used to
disguise the origin of such goods. This will benefit all current and
future liberation movements. (See: IP245 & EC953)
- Calls, in particular, for local authority pension funds to divest from
firms profiting from the occupation.
- Calls for assets to be frozen for all people and businesses linked to the
continuation or expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
- Demands that diplomatic links to Israel be used solely for bringing peace
to the region, until Israeli brutality ceases and significant progress is
made towards an egalitarian solution.
- Calls for the release of all Palestinian prisoners of conscience,
including Marwan Barghouti.
- Presses for the treatment of all Palestinian prisoners and combatants in
accordance with international humanitarian law.
- Condemns the use of military courts for Palestinians, particularly the
inhumane recent expansion of the death penalty and publicly broadcast
trials.
- Calls for the removal of Palestine Action from the list of proscribed
organisations in Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000, the reversal of
terrorism charges against supporters of Palestine Action and for the
release of all prisoners detained for non-violent activities in support of
Palestinian rights.
- Calls for widespread discussion and adoption of a framework and code of
practice identifying and eliminating anti-Palestinian racism, in
Parliament, councils and civic life.
The Green Party emphasises that its own unity is the best way to support these
aims, not for our own sake, but because internal divisions will only serve the
interests of those who wish to maintain the status quo and avoid addressing
Israel’s brutality. The Party believes in solidarity across marginalised groups
and refuses to allow any attempt at division to the benefit of oppressors. This
struggle has implications for us all: Palestinians, Jews, and others both in the
Middle East and in the UK; our safety and well-being is interlinked.
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