The far-left leader of the British Green Party, Zack Polanski, has been banned from entering the state of Israel after his party adopted a motion declaring “Zionism is racism” as official policy on Sunday.
At its annual party conference in Brighton on Sunday, Green members voted by a measure of 1,022 to 813 in favour of a motion put forward by the Greens for Palestine group, which said that Zionism should be “treated as any other form of racism” by the party. The motion also said that the party should advocate for a “single Palestinian state,” essentially calling for the destruction of Israel as a country.
The motion, which is now official Green Party policy, added that Zionism is “based upon European settler-colonial systems of domination and oppression, which has also created racial hierarchies between Jews of different ethnicities in Palestine” and that it represents the “historic and ongoing dehumanisation, displacement, dispossession, disenfranchisement and destruction of Palestinians.”
Although Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, did not attend the vote as he was campaigning for the upcoming Holborn & St Pancras by-election, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday evening that it has ordered an entry ban on the leftist politician from entering the country, saying that the party he leads “gives legitimacy to terrorism.”
“The Greens have adopted not only the green of Hamas, but also its ideology: the elimination of the State of Israel through armed struggle,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Jerusalem added that the motion “legitimises armed struggle, calls for a Palestinian state ‘from the river to the sea’ — meaning the destruction of the State of Israel — and labels as ‘racist’ the aspiration of the Jewish people for self-determination.”
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid also condemned the motion, saying: “I am a Zionist. I believe in the Jewish people’s right to a state in our homeland, in our right to live in peace and security. As we prepare to mark three years since the October 7th massacre, the UK Green Party has chosen to side with terrorists and antisemites. It is not Zionism that’s racism, it is the Green Party.”
Prior to the vote, Polanski had sought to hedge his support, saying that while he is a committed anti-Zionist, he would only support the motion if the wording calling for a single Palestinian state was removed, and a carve-out was made for Jewish members to avoid being labelled as racist for attending synagogues and other Jewish community organisations that classify themselves as Zionist.
Nevertheless, Polanski said that he agreed with the sentiment, saying that “if your Zionism is the displacement of the Palestinian people, then that’s clearly racist”.
However, the motion has apparently caused a rift within the party between its traditional base of left-wing environmentalists and the recent influx of Muslims disaffected with the Labour Party.
Indeed, while relatively new arrivals like Deputy leader Mothin Ali supported the motion, others, such as former party leader Caroline Lucas, condemned it as being “divisive” and a “sign that Jewish people aren’t welcome in the party”.
Polanski, who oversaw a resurgence in the Greens’ popularity, is facing growing questions about his leadership, with some suggesting that a loss in the Holborn & St Pancras by-election to fill former PM Sir Keir Starmer’s vacated seat in Parliament could see him ousted as Green leader.
Polanski denied that his leadership is determined on a victory, telling The Guardian last week that his position “doesn’t depend on it whatsoever”, while describing the race as “probably 50/50 right now” and “really on a knife edge”.