\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Saturday morning in a Victorian public garden in Camden, north London, and the mood is upbeat. Green leader Zack Polanski is fighting a byelection in suboptimal conditions: in a seat with an 11,000 Labour majority, his approval ratings in a slump, and, unlike when the party won Gorton and Denton in February, a prime minister in Downing Street who not everyone totally hates. But on his side he has a party membership surpassing 230,000, of whom around 200 enthusiastic volunteers are out today. If Green members are apparently <\/span>\u201cturning on\u201d Polanski for not being anti-Zionist enough<\/span><\/a>, as one recent report in the rightwing press claimed, you can\u2019t feel it here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u2019s not to say Zionism isn\u2019t being talked about. It is, as much on this sunny morning in Holborn and St Pancras as in the media in recent weeks, because of a controversial motion titled \u2018Zionism is Racism\u2019, set to be debated at the party\u2019s conference just days before the 8 October byelection.<\/span><\/p>\n The Greens already have strong policies on Israel and Palestine, describing Israeli conduct as apartheid and genocide, backing a full arms embargo, sanctions and an end to occupation and illegal settlements. But the Zionism is Racism motion takes things further. It calls on the party to, among other things, state that it is anti-Zionist, support a single, democratic Palestinian state, demand freedom for Palestinian political prisoners, oppose the Palestine Action ban, affirm Palestinians\u2019 right to resistance, and, as per the title, equate Zionism with racism.<\/span><\/p>\n The motion itself isn\u2019t new, and nor is the hoo-ha around it. Submitted to the party\u2019s spring conference but not put to members due to time constraints (<\/span>or sabotage<\/span><\/a>, depending on who you ask), it was leapt on by the rightwing press as evidence of a Green antisemitism crisis. By avoiding debating the motion back in March, the party just kicked the can down the road, Novara Media reporter <\/span>Rivkah Brown wrote at the time<\/span><\/a>. But some think that a fight, both with the media and within the party, is exactly what\u2019s needed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe whole point of this motion is for us to challenge and confront the establishment,\u201d <\/span>said Lubna Speitan<\/span><\/a>, a British-Palestinian activist and the proposer of the motion. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what the leadership thinks\u2026 It\u2019s about us, the members\u2026 forcing their hand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Speitan\u2019s comments followed <\/span>an interview<\/span><\/a> in which Polanski, who\u2019s been under pressure to take a stance, said he was undecided about voting for the motion. He did say he believed it needed to better safeguard anti-Zionist Jews from being accused of racism, and it should be up to the people of the region to determine their own political settlement, not the Green party of England and Wales or the British state. Still, on Thursday night, Polanski sat in front of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and declared he was an anti-Zionist \u2013 something supporters of the motion <\/span>claimed as a win<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Ashok Kumar, a Green member who\u2019s backing the motion, told Novara Media: \u201cIt\u2019s the right position\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c[The] politics of the country have shifted quite dramatically since late 2023,\u201d Kumar said. \u201cWe\u2019re actually meeting the proportion of the population that really feels strongly about this.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere is no fence-sitting on this\u2026 Some things aren\u2019t nuanced. Slavery, not nuanced. Zionism, not nuanced\u2026 The point is to throw down the gauntlet and say, \u2018You\u2019re either with the people of Palestine, or you\u2019re with the oppressors\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But even anti-Zionist members who don\u2019t find much to disagree with in the content of the motion have raised doubts about whether or not it\u2019s strategic. Some activists are dismissive of the media ire it\u2019s drawing: \u201cCome at us,\u201d said Kumar, \u201cYou stand up to the press\u2026 and people actually respect that.\u201d But others believe a big debate about Zionism could harm the party\u2019s electoral chances \u2013 and without doing anything to make Palestinians\u2019 lives any better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s quite an abstract debate, it\u2019s quite an academic debate\u201d, said a local party chair, who asked to remain anonymous due to his role. \u201cIt\u2019s not particularly relevant for most people in the country at large.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A Green councillor in south London agreed. \u201c[The motion] traps us at the level of language and definitions\u2026 There\u2019s a perception that there\u2019s a dial called \u2018anti-Zionism\u2019 and the higher you turn it, the more Palestinian liberation you get. And obviously that\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This isn\u2019t an argument for not talking about Palestine. Joe Todd, a writer and Green party member, said he wanted the Greens to have a motion on Palestine that puts pressure on the Labour party in a material way, and that people can understand and relate to. \u201cTrying to talk about Zionism is Racism on the doorstep is just not gonna fly,\u201d he told Novara Media.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of \u201clatent frustration\u201d about the motion, said the local chair. But there\u2019s also an atmosphere in which \u201cpeople feel like they can\u2019t put their heads above the parapet and say, \u2018Actually, no, I don\u2019t think this is right\u2019\u201d, claimed the councillor, who didn\u2019t want to be named for this reason. While many of the motion\u2019s supporters are engaging in collegial debate, others have reportedly <\/span>heckled dissenting voices<\/span><\/a>. As writer and activist <\/span>Shanice McBean has noted<\/span>, some have mobilised the identity of the Palestinian people in defence of their positions, suggesting that the proposed amendments to the motion are <\/span>a reflection of the Israel lobby<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jo Dowbor is a co-founder of Greens for Palestine and co-chair of the Young Greens. She supports the motion, but said she believed that some of the toxicity around it, which isn\u2019t the norm within Green party culture, is to do with \u201chow we\u2019ve seen a livestreamed genocide, and how that has affected us all emotionally\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Kumar doesn\u2019t buy the strategic concerns. He argued that no one is not going to vote for Green because of the Zionism is Racism motion, and it\u2019s precisely through motions like this that the party can shape wider politics and \u201cshift the paradigm\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cZack may have never called himself an anti-Zionist and said that Zionism as it\u2019s practiced today is racism without this motion,\u201d he said. \u201cThe question may not have even been asked.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ultimately, some of the debate comes down to a broader disagreement over how the party will transform the political landscape. Kumar said he doesn\u2019t care if the Greens don\u2019t win as many seats as they otherwise might. \u201cI\u2019d much rather us be a party with strong politics, a democratic tradition, polling between 10-14%. That\u2019s far more effective at shifting the gears of politics in Britain.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Todd wants to see the Greens become an ecosocialist party that someday aims to form a government. This means \u201cobsessing over getting to 30%\u201d by being \u201cprincipled but flexible\u201d, following the <\/span>Belgian Workers\u2019 Party<\/span><\/a> \u2013 starting with political principles but shaping how they\u2019re communicated depending on where people are at, he explained.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that would push forward the Palestinian cause,\u201d Todd said, \u201cis having a genuinely anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian party in government and in control of the British state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n