Palestine Solidarity Campaign sends message of solidarity to Green Party over Zionism is racism motion

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has sent a message of solidarity to the Green Party and its members following the party’s autumn conference voting to back a motion declaring Zionism to be a racist political ideology.

The motion passed by the conference saw the Green Party describe Zionism as an ethnonationalist political project and explicitly endorse the creation of a single Palestinian state with equal rights for all.

In their statement, Palestine Solidarity Campaign said that it “extends its solidarity to the Green Party of England and Wales and its members who are facing a barrage of media smears and abuse following their democratic conference decision to pass the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion.”

The statement also explicitly endorsed a number of the elements of the motion. It read: “The motion supports the call from Palestinian civil society to impose boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel similar to those applied to apartheid South Africa and calls for the release of all Palestinian political prisoners, the de-proscription of Palestine Action and the release of all those currently imprisoned in Britain for nonviolent direct action in support of Palestinian rights – all of which we fully endorse.”

Later in the statement, Palestine Solidarity Campaign made the case for the party adopting an explicitly anti-Zionist position. The group said: “Critics of the Green Party motion have stated that Zionism is nothing more than the desire for self-determination for Jewish people. That is just not true. Zionism as a political project has been used to justify over a century of Palestinian dispossession and continues to underpin Israel’s genocide in Gaza today.”

It continued: “Palestine was never ‘a land without a people.’ Zionism’s founding ideology and political movement entailed the violent colonisation of Palestine and the establishment of a ‘Jewish state’ by removing or eliminating the indigenous Palestinian population from some or all of their homeland. Since its creation, consecutive Israeli governments have enacted a raft of policies that aim to take control of the maximum amount of land with the minimum number of Palestinians, denying their fundamental rights. No other interpretation is consistent with the history and reality of Zionism. Anti-Zionism is our opposition to that project and support for the rights of the Palestinian people. 

“Any political project that relies on ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism and the imposition of a system of apartheid, which Zionism fundamentally does, and which is responsible for genocide, is self-evidently racist. We welcome the decision of Green Party conference to declare this truth.”

However, Palestine Solidarity Campaign stopped short of backing the Green Party’s support for a single Palestinian state. The group said: “PSC is an anti-Zionist organisation. As a solidarity campaign, it is our core aim to support the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice – to end the systems of oppression that prevent the Palestinian people from realising their inalienable rights, including their right to self-determination and right of return. Our longstanding policy, shaped in dialogue with our Palestinian partners, is that it is for the Palestinian people as a whole, rather than the solidarity movement in Britain, to decide what form Palestinian self-determination should take, but this does not diminish our opposition to Zionism.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward