Israel Bars Green Party Leader After Zionism Racism Vote
Israel barred Green Party leader Zack Polanski from entry after the party adopted a resolution defining Zionism as a form of racism during its annual conference.
The Government of Israel barred Green Party leader Zack Polanski from entering the country after the party's annual conference in Brighton adopted a resolution defining Zionism as a form of racism. The motion, proposed by the internal group Greens for Palestine, passed with 1,022 votes in favor and 813 against, establishing the Greens as an anti-Zionist party and calling for a single democratic Palestinian state across all of historic Palestine.
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the text as antisemitic under the IHRA definition, claiming it legitimizes the destruction of the State of Israel and supports armed struggle. President Isaac Herzog described the decision as a disgrace and a shame. In a public protest outside the British Parliament in London, Matan Bar Noy, head of the World Zionist Organization delegation to Britain and Europe, tore up the resolution, characterizing it as a libel against the Jewish people's right to self-determination.
The vote exposed deep divisions within the Green Party of the United Kingdom. Four of its five MPs publicly rejected the motion. While Zack Polanski did not participate in the vote, he later told the BBC that the motion's definition of Zionism as the displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people is clearly racism. Polanski and Green MPs issued a joint statement asserting there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people. The resolution also drew condemnation from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and leaders of the UK's Labour and Conservative parties.
