If you support the Green motion that Zionism is racism, please can you explain this to me like I am a child?

[orthrywreeinvicedifthe]

I am politically engaged and have done a lot of reading around the subject, and for transparency I support a two state solution.

But if you believe that Zionism is racism, does this also hold true of all the other countries with official religions? Is it racist to believe that Pakistan exists? I do not understand.

The other side have been pushing for anti Zionism to be considered antisemitism for years so it’s just a reverse of that. Obviously both are bs

To be clear, I don’t support the greens statement. I don’t think it is necessary or productive.

on a more theoretical note.

I don’t think racism is the right word to describe the problem with official religions. The problems can occur regardless of race. It is inherently discriminatory to have an official government religion. Even if 100% of the people agree to form a religious government, children will be born that should be free to choose. No person should feel ostracized. No person should have different rights because they don’t follow the state system of beliefs.

I don’t agree with it at all, but the argument seems to be that taking land from Palestinians nearly 100 years ago to give to Jews was racist and so any continuation of Israel is racist. There’s also those who go on and on about how Israel is an apartheid state and therefore a wholly racist country.

To reiterate - I do not even slightly agree with these positions as I'm a non-Jewish Zionist myself. But that’s the arguments I’ve heard put forward.

Op You may find it helpful to watch Owen Jones on this

No Israeli citizen does have different rights because they don’t follow the state system of beliefs.

Thank you.

That goes some way to explaining it. But there are many countries where land has been ‘seized’ (I don’t think this is what Israel did) but there are no motions about the USA or Australia needing to hand back land and control to the natives.

Posting an OJ video as informative or evidence about something, hilarious!

Someone has a sense of humour obviously

I thought the same.

No Israeli citizen does have different rights because they don’t follow the state system of beliefs.

That's a very specific claim since many people who aren't Israeli are tried there (you could argue against international law). The new death penalty law will only be applied to Palestinian (and other non-Israeli) terrorists. From Wiki, 'the law applies only to those who "'intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel'—a definition designed to exclude Jewish terrorists".'

I don't agree with the Greens' motion. It's poorly written and badly thought out. But I do agree that the kind of Zionism that seeks to murder, maim and displace Palestinians is racist. And that exists. And the treatment of Palestinians under Israeli law is too.

there are no motions about the USA or Australia needing to hand back land and control to the natives.

"Natives"? Yikes. And there are indigenous land claims and governments are doing it in a very limited way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Back

Please don't use indigenous people to make a point. Especially when you don't know anything about it.

There are many people who have a more academic understanding of this than me (actual books not just heavily biased media) but Israel is not just a country with an official religion it is an ethno-state and the residents of that state have different rights (or an aparteid). There is an occupier and an occupied strata of society. The land was very much seized and still is. The population of Gaza are still under siege and occupy only 30% of the territory. It's residents cannot leave or return. The land of the west bank is being seized all the time, very violently. Large "camps" of people are displaced and not allowed to return, they were already displaced!
The colonisation and eradication of the natives of USA and Australia is considered to be so complete and the populations so suppressed by years of oppression and subjugation that there is no longer any significant resistance. There's a really good (by bloody awful) graphic novel by Joe Sacco and Chris Hedges about the situation of the natives of the USA. I used to work for the Australians and it's a very similar story.

As a Jewish non-Zionist who does not support the Greens motion, I think @JemimaTiggywinkles has got it about right.

I do want to try to explain something several posters are, understandably to my mind getting wrong, with the caveat I am no expert.

One thing is that Israel is not a 'religious state'. On its founding it was very explicit that it was a secular state; religious authorities do not govern it and the intention was very much to avoid this ever being the case.

Second, Jewish identity is not founded on belief but peoplehood. Your average Israeli is irreligious as heck! If you are Jewish by descent, you are Jewish, even if you've never been to a synagogue and love bacon sarnies.

Hope this is helpful 🙂

So, as I said, all Israelis do have equal rights.

Zionism means belief that Jewish people have the right to self-determination and statehood in their historical ancestral homeland. There is no kind of Zionism that is what you say. That is simply not Zionism.

Where are the Green Party motions and British marches?

This is just simply untrue. Israeli citizens have equal rights, regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

The best comment to read is the one today by Danny Finkelstein in The Times. There is no justification for the Greens policy. You have to understand that the party has been infiltrated by the hard left and Finkekstein gives a clear description of what the policy means for Uk Jews and why the left support policies like this. Its history lies in Marxism and Soviet propaganda. The Greens, as they exist, are a total disgrace.

I'm sure they'll get on to it, but the Palestine cause is a multifaceted one that needs a lot of time and effort put in to make sure the Palestinian people have a life that they can live freely, whether that be in Palestine or over here in the UK where they can be sheltered by the state.

They’ve had hundreds of years to get on to it. Yet Palestine remains the only foreign policy issue that they seem to care about it, and they can never explain why.

The Green Party supports indigenous rights. Google it. And since one of the basic principles of the movement is "nothing about us without us" and the Greens are indigenous people's of Australia or the US, they are rightly supporting not leading.

There is no kind of Zionism that is what you say. That is simply not Zionism. And what do you think Ben-Gvir and his supporters think Zionism is? Not me, them. What do they believe about it? Do they think they are Zionists? As I said, not in favour of the Greens' motion on this. But to pretend there are no extreme views of what Zionism is is strange.

People are allowed to focus on activism and philanthropy that matters most to them without having to purity spiral over every single injustice present in the modern world?
For example, are you doing anything for the plight of refugees stuck in France who are looking for sanctuary in the UK? If not, does that mean then that we can assume you don't want them here?

If the Canadian, US or Australian governments starting killing children in reserves, reservations, tribal lands and First Nations in their tens of thousands today, I think the Greens would say something.

People would have us believe it's the religion in Israel that causes the outrage. I think some people are absolutely antisemitic. But a lot of us are shocked not because of the religion, but because of the government. It's a western-style democracy. We, of course, are more shocked, and feel there is more to be done, when the government is democratic. Of course totalitarians kill and oppress people, and there's nothing that can be done. But when 'people like us' with agency, voting rights and freedom do, it's horrifying.

OP asked to understand why some people voted the way they did on the GP motion. I am not a supporter of OJ at all, but if she wants to get a sense of what the radical left think that he is a good person to look at. Personally I'd rather not, but there we go.

You can point at the heinous views of any far right political parties. Zionism is the belief that Jewish people are entitled to self-determination and a homeland. To point to extreme right wing views and claim it’s a version of Zionism is like pointing to the Zionism motion and claiming it’s a version of environmentalism.

It’s never any single other injustice though, is it?

I still don’t understand how Zionism can be racist but the partitioning of India, for example, isn’t?

He’s definitely an example of the radical left. I used to really like him. Went to see him speak about 12 years or so ago. But he has entirely lost the plot. I have friends I am becoming ashamed of, due to their stance on Israel. If I’m honest I try and avoid the topic with them. I have tried to argue in the past but you can’t have a rational argument with them because, I think, the truth is that they are anti-Semitic.