Mick Hartley

Green infighting – more anti-Zionist than thou. From the Telegraph:

It is infighting you would expect from a Monty Python sketch.

But pro-Palestine Greens have been plunged into further factional chaos as they quibble over competing anti-Israel motions.

Earlier this year, far-Left members of the party tried to pass a motion dubbed “Zionism is Racism” at the Greens’ spring party conference, but technical difficulties and filibustering from opponents meant that it was never fully considered.

However, leaked WhatsApp messages seen by The Telegraph reveal the members are still planning to propose the motion at the party’s autumn conference.

If successful, the motion would codify the belief in a “single Palestinian state” and the Palestinian right to “armed struggle” into Green Party policy.

This contradicts existing party policy, which endorses a two-state solution.

Last month, other pro-Palestine activists within the Green Party submitted a draft competing anti-Israel motion to the Greens4Palestine steering committee, asking for “feedback”.

They say their new motion sought to “find a unifying position within the party” on the Israel-Palestine conflict while standing in solidarity with “oppressed peoples”.

The second pro-Palestine motion, called “End Israel’s racism and violence”, includes an endorsement of “the Palestinian people’s right to resistance”. It calls for a boycott of all economic and cultural products associated with Israel, as well as an end to the proscription of the direct action protest group Palestine Action.

A text from the draft motion states: “The Green Party affirms its position that the current and historic state of Israel is a racist state manifesting in apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide.”

But this was firmly rejected by Greens4Palestine organisers, who told supporters that this alternative did not go far enough.

Oh dear.

Zack Polanski, the Green leader, who is Jewish, has failed to say definitively whether he would back the “Zionism is Racism” motion.

Speaking on Times Radio in February, he said: “I can give you some different definitions of Zionism and we can talk about whether they’re racist or not.

“If we’re talking about the definition that this Israeli government are clearly perpetrating through a genocide in Gaza, then yes, absolutely. That’s racist.”

His deputy, Mothin Ali, has privately backed the motion.

Ha. Of course he did.