After Starmers clear out of all the antisemitic elements of the Labour Party, those elements needed to find a home, they found one in the Green Party.
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Thank you for the article, it’s the best critique I’ve read.
I understand that the Green party vote specifically addressed the areas of Zionism they condemned.
They are not against Israel existing. They are against the aspects of Zionism I mentioned.
Here is the motion in full. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/68aeeefa71cfb354e87838f3/t/69a734189b3ce55aec9492ee/1772565529021/Green+Party+Motion+A105+-+Inc+A5+amend.pdf
The motion condemns the illegal expansion of Israel.
It condemns the way Zionists in the legal state of Israel seek to expand the Jewish population by allowing European Jews to settle, but Illegally denying the right of re-entry to those Palestinians who were driven out. At least that is how I interpret the ethnonationism aspects; that and the two tier status of Israeli citizens based on their origins.
It isn’t open to the Green Party to choose its own definition of Zionism, and then to say Zionism is racism. That’s at the very least fantasy politics; in execution, it’s antisemitism.
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That’s naked racism.
How so?
If the Old Testament is to be believed, all the indigenous peoples of that accursed area are descended from a common ancestor and hence the same race.
Or are the descendants of European Jews that fled or survived the failed Austrian painter the problem?
Now now, we all know feelings are far more important than facts this century.
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Do you think you may be spending too much time with your mate Al Jazeera?
Interestingly - to me - I find that (if I understood the brief excerpt I heard) takes my view. That’s a novel experience!
Well, yes, but enough about Reform.
They’re all as bad as each other.
If I had a core political position that I wanted an exclusively ethnically English nation-state then that would be rightly called racist. Why is calling for a Jewish state of Israel different?
If the statement had said “a safe place that anyone of Jewish ethnicity can call home” that would be quite different. But in practice what we are seeing is an attempt to make that bald statement come true. Non-Jewish citizens are officially differentiated and the present government is trying to prevent non-Jews from holding positions in politics. Zionism is naked racism.
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Because those two things aren’t equivalent.
There’s a link to the Green motion above. It conflates Zionism with ethno-nationalism. That’s the problem. Zionism can take many forms. It is not the Green Party’s prerogative - or even the entryists (see below) who skewed the vote, perhaps - to define Zionism and then call it racist.
The state of Israel - and the ideal of Zionism, the need for a homeland where Jewish people could be safe - was needed because of the centuries of persecution suffered by Jewish people in every country in the world.
If you’re worried about (a) thinking the motion appalling; (b) the current Israeli government is racist and (c) wanting to maintain that Israel is committing genocide, don’t be: James O’Brien holds both views.
Entryism - the process whereby Jeremy Corbyn, someone who on several occasions expressed antisemitic views, became Labour leader.
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Zionism is a term used in many different ways.
And that is why the Green motion sought to define it for the purposes of their debate.
It is not the Greens telling others how to define and use the term it is them trying to define and limit it in context.
I guess they were trying to avoid having condemnation of Israeli state genocide, and illegal expansion, being conflated with antisemitism, and calls to end Israel as a state at all.
If so it hasn’t worked.
That’s exactly the problem.
Claim you’re closely defining a term, create a slogan using the same term, and wait for all the antisemites and other wicked people to unite under its banner.
It’s as cynical as it is wicked.
Criticise the illegal (says the UN) occupation of Palestine by Israeli forces, condemn the wicked and violent land grabs by “settlers”, and then be called antisemitic to ward off the justified criticism.
Spot the difference?
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It’s as though I never wrote:
If the statement had said “a safe place that anyone of Jewish ethnicity can call home” that would be quite different. But in practice what we are seeing is an attempt to make that bald statement come true. Non-Jewish citizens are officially differentiated and the present government is trying to prevent non-Jews from holding positions in politics. Zionism is naked racism.
Because “The essential core of Zionism remains a desire for there to be a Jewish state of Israel.” A Jewish state specifically excludes all others. An that is racism.
I think we’ve been talking past each other.
The existence of the Jewish state of Israel doesn’t mean that non-Jews can’t live there. It’s the Greens who make that claim, by falsely equating Zionism with ethno-nationalism, whereas ethno-nationalism is only one extreme version of Zionism.
I honestly think that a portion of the Jews there will only accept gentiles as an under-race and not as equal citizens. In practice this is already the case with Non-Jewish citizens having different ID cards and rights.
This is why I worded my answer in the way I did.
Well my other £0.99p book recommendation this morning went well didn’t it 
. How about this one Also £0.99p in October while its quota lasts.
Jake Wallis Simons “Never Again - How the West betrayed the Jews and Itself” . Apparently covers Anti-Semitism in modern Britain. Rated 4.8 / 5.0 .
B0DVC3PMMF in Amazon UK search box will find the £0.99p Kindle offer.
A taster
