Photo via middleeasteye.net
UK Green Party votes to define Zionism as racism, drawing swift Israeli condemnation
The party adopted the motion in a sharply divided membership vote at its Brighton conference, prompting Israel to declare it 'gives legitimacy to terrorism' and banning party leader Zack Polanski from entering the country.
The Green Party of England and Wales voted on October 4 to adopt a motion classifying Zionism as racism, marking an escalation in the party's formal stance on Israel-Palestine after months of internal debate. The motion passed 1,022 to 813 in a member vote at the party's autumn conference in Brighton, with the party describing Zionism as an 'ethnonationalist political project' that 'privileges one ethnic group on the basis of the subjugation of others.' The party now commits to supporting a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine—a shift from its previous openness to either a one-state or two-state solution—and calls for an end to all British arms sales to Israel.
The decision deepened existing fractures within the Greens, which has surged in recent polling to over 14 percent. Party leader Zack Polanski, himself Jewish, did not vote, having left the conference to campaign for a parliamentary by-election in London. Four of the party's five sitting MPs—Ellie Chowns, Adrian Ramsay, Sian Berry, and Carla Denyer—publicly opposed the motion beforehand. Two amendment attempts to soften its language, both backed by Polanski, failed before the main vote. Jewish community groups and the Movement for Progressive Judaism immediately condemned the action, with one spokesperson declaring the party had 'made antisemitism party policy and become a racist party.'
Israel's response was swift and severe. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar declared Polanski barred from entering the country, and the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the resolution 'now views the party as a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism' and accused it of adopting 'the ideology of Hamas: the elimination of the State of Israel through armed struggle.' Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the move 'a disgrace and a shame,' while opposition leader Yair Lapid shot back that 'it is not Zionism that's racism, it is the Green Party.' Israel called on other British political parties, particularly the ruling Labour Party, to reject the resolution.
Polanski and the five Green MPs issued a joint statement after the vote saying they would 'always uphold universal human rights' and 'continue to stand in opposition to genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and the illegal occupation,' while insisting there is 'no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people.' Deputy leader Mothin Ali, a supporter of the motion, emphasized that Palestinian casualties in Gaza provided essential context for the vote. The motion's proposer, British-Palestinian member Lubna Speitan, framed it as identifying Zionism as a 'settler colonial ideology' responsible for the denial of Palestinian rights.
This is a forced move by a party faction that captured member sentiment. Polanski and senior Greens attempted to water down the motion (two amendments failed), suggesting leadership understood the reputational cost. By abstaining rather than voting against, Polanski avoided a direct intra-party rupture while signaling non-endorsement—a classic triangulation that satisfied neither critics nor advocates. The vote exposes a strategic vulnerability: the Greens have cultivated pro-Palestine sentiment to attract younger, left-wing voters who reject Labour's stance on Gaza, but formalizing this as 'Zionism is racism' closes the door on moderate Jewish supporters and provides ammunition for opponents to paint the party as fundamentally antisemitic. Israel's response (entry ban, public condemnation, pressure on other UK parties) is designed to isolate the Greens diplomatically and politically. The countermove for Polanski would be to enforce party discipline against antisemitic incidents (over 30 candidates are under investigation) and clarify that the motion applies to ideology, not people—but the faction that passed this motion controls the grassroots, and the leadership lacks the leverage to reverse it.