AIBU - the Green party has become a racist organisation?

[Twiglets1]

The Green Party of England and Wales has been declared a racist organisation by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

The Jewish body, which is the largest in the UK, was responding to the "Zionism is racism" policy motion passed at the Green Party's conference earlier this month.

Board of Deputies president Phil Rosenberg said a vote passed by 118 votes to one to declare that the Greens had, "by adopting an antisemitic platform, become a racist party".

I agree with this assessment but AIBU?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckx2qyd17eqvo

Membership of idiots.

Definitely more about the rush of protesting, attention seeking making and social inclusion from their peers for many of these people

When writing my post I was going to list a few organisations that may be keen to adopt this policy but changed my mind

NEU was my first thought

I'm not in the NEU, I've always been in the NASUWT, never particularly liked the militancy of the NUT as was. Daniel Kebede, the relatively new current leader of the NEU is proper hard left, chanting Globalise the Intifada at marches, blaming NATO for the Russian invasion of Ukraine etc. And NEU conferences often have a bit where they wave the Palestinian flag, unclear what that has to do with working conditions for English teachers.

BUT the NASUWT now have their own issues, Matt Wrack (former head of the firefighter union, never a teacher) is inexplicably now in charge and he is also a hard left Corbynite type. However, the NASUWT is historically more moderate than the NEU so I'm not sure the membership would be happy if he started to move away from that. He doesn't seem to have done anything particularly mad so far. If he does, I'll probably have to join Edapt or something.

Kebede is already moaning about the suggestion that the IHRA definition of antisemitism should be adopted by schools.

What is wrong with selling Shlomo Sand's book?

Its all wrong @noblegiraffe that as a teacher, you have to contemplate moving your union membership because unions can't stick to their primary purpose.

There's something very sinister about that man.

I disagree with their Zionism is racism stance, but equally I think they did not help themselves by not making clear what they mean by “Zionism”.

I think Peter Tatchell had a very clear post on this regarding his issue with the Green party motion.

I do think though people need to start separating Zionism from Judaism as it’s not the same.

Yes to give her her due she spoke up on it. And got backlash from her own party.

It is a famously antisemitic book that propagates untrue conspiracy theories about the Jewish people.

My friend is a NEU union rep. She isn't Jewish but speaks about how uncomfortable some of the speeches at conference have been, apparently many people she knows feel the same way. Though apparently that isn't stopping her or others being part of tbe NEU so make of that whatever you like. I can't personally imagine being associated with such a shamefully embarrassing union but sure people have their own reasons.

Yep, have seen

Sure more will be made of that by the NEU in due course

They will be asking members to fight it at every point and likely to start drawing up tactics to deal with teaching around it in class to avoid it having any positive impact

I had to Google as I had never heard of it.

Interestingly it was a best seller in Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People

I don’t know why this would have any relevance to a Green party conference though.

Not the same but for most Jews a very big part of their Jewish identity and beliefs. So not really somewhat can be separated.

This is exactly why the policy is racist. If Judaism and Zionism could be easily separated then maybe there could be an argument the policy wasn't racist. However Judaism is more a religion like Christianity or Islam. It does not fit in a neat little religion box.

It is relevant to the Green Party conference because the book asserts that Jewish people were not exiled from Palestine and that the majority of modern Jewish people are European converts. Therefore they have no 'claim' to Israel.

Given the Green Party is running on an antisemitic platform, denying Jews' ancestry and homeland gives them an 'excuse' to support ethnically cleansing them from Israel.

None of this should be relevant to a Green Party conference, but here we are.

The book sold well in many countries because controversial so everyone wanted to read what it said. Think prince Harry had a book that sold fairly well but not many people brought it because they like Harry or thought it was factually true. It sold because people wanted to talk about it and pick it apart etc.

The book has zero relevance to Green Party or UK politics of old. It has every relevance to the current rhetoric pumped out

More than half the population of Israel are Mizrahi Jews and their decendants so the European Jew stuff is rather eye rolling at this point. Also even those Jews decendants from European have DNA that is arguably not from Europe alone.

@Neverstopwondering There is also extreme irony in Mothin Ali et al arguing that only ethnically indigenous people have the right to live in a particular land

Bu they can still be easily separated. If it could not then being an anti-Zionist Jewish person would be impossible. But I think that’s why they should define clearly what they meant by saying “Zionism is Racism”.

None of this should be relevant to a Green Party conference, but here we are.

Well yes. Exactly my point.

There has been no legal ruling against ‘zionism is racism’ policy though, so there’s nothing holding major institutions back

How does it work - only Israel needs to be dismantled and the Jewish people ethnically cleansed? Pakistan was created as a home for the Muslim population - does that need to be dismantled; is that problematic/discriminatory? Is any other country, race, ethnicity targeted like this?

The insistence that this discrimination is operating on different criteria is irrelevant. This is what the Nazis did by discriminating on race rather than religion, and coining the new 'acceptable' belief of antisemitism.

It is fairly obvious that many think that ‘Zionist’ means ‘supporter of Netanyahu’ and that is why it is acceptable to workshop chants like ‘put the Zios in the ground’. Because surely to be a Zionist must mean ‘supports the killing of babies’ otherwise they wouldn’t be so demonised, right?

It doesn't suit them to define it

Even Zippy asked them to amend it before hand to define their meaning

They are not stupid, if they defined it then they would be left with a less catchy phrase and also would have lost some of the die hard anti-Zionists that want flat out no Israel at all

An anti zionist Jew is normal one that doesn't believe Israel should exist at all or in a fair few cases I have spoken too just lacks a basic understanding of the tie between Judaism and Zionism. Normally once you start talking to anti-Zionists it turns out a lot are in fact Zionist in the most basic understanding of the belief. They believe Israel should not ne destroyed now it exists and they believe Jewish people have the right to self determination like everyone else. They can call them whatever they like but they believe the same thing as most tbe Jewish community.

It is also completely inappropriate for the Green Party to define Zionism.