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.

I'm a member of the Green Party and attended Conference where I voted against the Zionism is Racism motion.

There was a very good motion about Iran which condemned Trump's war against Iran but also recognised that the current regime is a theocratic dictatorship and which expressed support for the Iranian people.

The motion had been written by Iranian women who understand how murderous the current government is. Sadly, it didn't get debated. Far too many motions make it into the Conference agenda so there's never enough time to debate them all.

It doesn't have anything to do with the religion of the land, but of the systematic theft and expansion of Israel into Palestinian land, and the treatment of Palestinians as second class citizens in their own country.

I thought large portions of land were bought from landlords during the collapse of the ottoman empire and the rest won through conflict (which was totally normal in those days). It wasn’t taken and given. There was a british newspaper report about how Jews were buying the land at ten times it’s actual value. The problem was that Palestinians were often renting land or just living on it but if you don’t own it, it’s not your land, that sounds really brutal to say but it’s the truth, if you buy a house thats rented out it doesn’t become theirs because they live there. The british mandate gave public land to Jews but it was often basically swampy useless land that no-one was on because there was nothing there.

I think if you are going to object on the basis of it being some sort of religious/ethno state then you will also have to criticise multiple other countries sand suggest they too should dissolved too. In israel you don’t have to be jewish to be the prime minister, in multiple arab countries you have to be muslim. I also wouldn’t say those aren’t ethno states either, in a lot of countries women are unable to pass their children citizenship, only men are allowed to do that so lineages stay intact precisely to prevent foreign male lineages taking root.

I think you can’t claim that it’s an ethnostate really if 20% of it’s citizen population inside Israel proper is ethnically arab (think Iraq may have a comparable percentage of Kurds). I don’t think theres another country in the middle east apart from Lebanon that has a significant proportion of it’s population as non muslim (Israels is 25% non muslim).

I think aside from the racism the problem is it’s built on the premise that any of the features of Israels demographics etc etc is unique to Israel. And if you look at rights such as freedom of worship, ethnic populations etc Israel is actually better on those scores than many of it’s arab neighbours. Literally every other country has a problem with some sort of sectarianism. So fine if you don’t feel comfortable with it but then be even handed and measure it against it’s neighbours. Jews are a middle eastern tribe, 50% of their jewish population are from iraq, yemen, North Africa. A lot of gazans trace their roots back to egyot, anatolia, saudi etc (and since the 18th century, not thousands of years ago) but thats never used as a basis for a claim they shouldn’t be there (and nor should it, everyone is where they are and a two state solution is the fairest way to resolve this).

The British Greens not only provide an oversimplified definition of Zionism with no acknowledgement that there are multiple types of Zionism

MNers who object to the Green Party Motion also insist that there is just one type of Zionism. <shrug>

I believe the many Israelis who endorse bullying Palestianians off the land or contained in tiny strips of land or military action against their neighbours, view those actions as survival and self-defence, and therefore they shouldn't be seen as war crimes or aggression. (2x shrug)

So we see antisemitic marches in Britain ‘because it’s a democracy’? Fuck that.

I am actually leaning to thinking you are right. But not in the way you mean. Because intelligence and the idea of democracy is under attack, everywhere.

So they found time to be racist cretins but not the time to debate and vote about something that should be sung out from the rooftops and would possibly win them more supporters

Absolutely unbelievable

Do you know by chance which motion was submitted first because that could possibly at least explain why they were willing to degrade their own party so much

You didn't say that, but the Green Party motion did. It said that Israel should be eradicated as a Jewish state and replaced with a different country.

When a PP queried why the Green Party was singling out Israel for this motion and not other countries like Iran, you said it was because Israel is a democracy and therefore held to higher standards.

But voting to eradicate that democracy as a country is quite extreme, isn't it? You seem very scathing of accusations of antisemitism around this vote, but it's not normal to want to wipe the world's only Jewish state from the map, is it?

What's behind that particular deep loathing which is singling out Israel beyond other countries?

I mean, other groups who want to get rid of Israel as a country are honest about why ('Death to Israel and a Curse Upon Jews' say the Houthis). Do you think it is so outlandish to suspect that's a problem here too?