Greens adopt policy treating Zionism as racism

[Twiglets1]

The Greens have formally adopted a policy which equates Zionism with racism, a move that will dismay the bulk of the party’s MPs and has alarmed some Jewish members.

In a vote on Sunday at the party’s annual conference in Brighton about whether to back a motion which calls for Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, to be “treated as any other form of racism”, it passed by 1,022 votes to 813.

The motion, which is now formal policy for the Greens in England and Wales, also calls for a single Palestinian state in place of Israel “with equal rights for all”.

Four of the party’s five MPs have condemned the motion, as did Caroline Lucas, the former leader who was the Greens’ first MP.

Adrian Ramsay, who co-led the Greens before Polanski, said in a statement he would vote against it, as it set out what sort of Palestinian state should exist without taking into account the self-determination of Israelis and Palestinians.

Siân Berry, another of the MPs, made the same point.

Carla Denyer, the Bristol Central MP who was co-leader with Ramsay, said the wording “risks alienating a significant proportion of Jewish people, including those who vehemently disagree with the Israeli government”.

Another Green MP, Ellie Chowns, said the motion “risks fuelling division, and risks undermining the party’s ability to advocate effectively for justice and peace”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/04/green-party-votes-adopt-policy-zionism-racism

Totally agree.

I also don’t get the psychotic logic of, “The Jews control the media, politics and the narrative”

If that was the case, common sense would surely say, how come you are free to make these thoroughly obnoxious accusations about Jews then? How come all these marches are still able to go ahead? How come you are able to display the Gazan flag without sanction?

These accusers really are completely out of their tree. The disturbing thing is; some of the opinions come out of our elite universities. If these are supposedly the cream of our intellectual youth, and they can’t see the illogical basis on what their opinions are formed, it’s truly depressing.

Yes I should have said some, I suppose hardline atheists who do in my experience hold people who have any religion in contempt (same as any other extremists) and they are often found in the Hard Left so maybe they are the kind of people anyway who are contemptuous of anyone who has a belief different from them, which doesn't apply to all people.

You could argue that WW2 was a result of certain individuals exploiting resentment that Germany was defeated in WW1 and the conditions imposed up on it as a consequence, but we’re digressing and that’s a whole new debate and thread.

Would ‘those individuals’ be the Nazi party by any chance?

Yes, I know people like this. They've been doing their Palestine solidarity thing for decades and I think they're delighted that their rather marginal campaign has become the cause du jour.

But it's about time Palestine went back to being treated the same as all the other awful but complicated conflicts (Sudan, Yemen and groups being persecuted that nobody ever talks about).

No, and it's strange, because most of the victims of Islamism are Muslims.
Particularly oppressed are women, and I think we all know what happens to homosexuals.

Whenever there's a thread on asylum seeking, there's some concerted effort to paint concerned women as racist. Sorry to keep banging this drum but you have to wonder why these women are so hell bent on protecting an oppressive regime, which doesn't even have women's welfare at heart! I'm obviously not referring to the moderate branch of Islam. Not that that ever seems to make a difference when you point that out.

I think it's fine to prioritise women's safety.

Yes, very good point. The pro-Palestine lobby think Israel should belong to Palestinians because Palestinians were there first (according to them).

Yed the same people will claim that migrants from ME, Africa, Asia etc have every right to come and live in the UK and anyone who says not is a rabid racist.

These people aren't interested in logic or fairness. They're only interested in tribal politics and demonstrating that they are part of the 'in' group. I've just re-read '1984' and it's all there, especially the Two Minute Hate.

Exactly. If Jews are that almighty, how did the Holocaust happen?

But then of course, some nutcases have even tried to explain that away, claiming that the Zionists had collaborated with the Nazis to basically create an excuse for a Jewish state.

No conspiracy theory is too batshit when it comes to condemning the Jews it seems.

How resourceful are the Jews? Having so much power and influence to control dictators in one era while flying planes into buildings in another.

So a yr7 boy feels emboldened to tell his History teacher, in the lesson, that she is teaching lies.

Catching them young. What was that the Jesuits used to say about "Give me a child until he is seven..."

I was at Oxford in the mid-60s. One of my college friends from back then told me in her Christmas letter last year that she was awaiting trial on the charge of supporting a proscribed group - Palestinian Action, of course. One of the cleverest people I've ever known. 😟

There has been some interesting discussion about ‘whatever happened to New Atheism?’ from the early 2000s, with Hitchens, Dawkins etc. There was some evidence that those radical atheists moved towards gender identity arguments (in favour, which is odd when you think of hardline atheists believing in a gendered soul), and there’s a big overlap on the hard left between that and the pro-Palestinians. In both cases, the trans beliefs and the atheism must cause an uneasy alliance with the pro-Palestinian Muslims (see Mothin Ali).

They broke a police woman’s spine with a sledgehammer. You’d think that would give people pause for thought, but dear god the arguments I’ve had on here where people have tried to justify it.

Hitch was warning about the term "Islamophobia" being weaponised against liberal democracies before virtually anyone else in the West. Dawkins, Harris and Dennett were late to the gender debate but AFAICT have never espoused anything other than a gender critical position. Are you sure they moved towards gender ideology?

Oh it's really common that people minimise or justify it. I've heard 'they were acting with restraint considering what's at stake.'

Not sure how many people they think were saved by breaking that woman's spine and causing criminal damage.

I so miss Hitch.

As an aside (but relevant to the general over-use of term like "genocide") I don't think the meaning of the word "terrorism" should be watered down to incorporate property damage designed to influence a government. I would much rather see Palestine Action proscribed for conspiracy to commit high treason (in addition to the GBH conviction for the individual with the sledgehammer, etc.)

I understand it when it comes to my more moderate Muslim female friends. Though they may complain to me about various issues in their own family or community regarding their treatment as females eg all the females in the family once had their phones taken away from them by a relative. They won't say anything negative about Islam or something of the less desirable teachings or leaders. It goes against what they believe Mo has said to criticise Islam and women will only get to heaven if not negative or critical of their husbands etc. For men the belief in Islam when the die is enough to insure they get a place in heaven but women are not guaranteed this. They have to earn it by being obedient and very few women pass this test. Therefore Muslim women know exactly what Islam is like for most other Muslim women around the world but dare not speak out if they truly believe in the afterlife.

Why western women defend Islam is because of ignorance mostly. However some do understand how horrible Islam can be for a lot of women but don't actually care about that as much their own crackpot politics and world view.

Property damage is included within the definition of terrorism: 'the unlawful use of force, serious violence, or threats against people, property, or systems to create fear, intimidate a public, or influence a government to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals'.

@Neverstopwondering Western women have been dissuaded from criticism/action with terms like 'white feminism,' and the idea that western women should 'stay in their lane,' in keeping with the idea that West=Bad. So essentially ignoring gender-based oppression and violence in other cultures out of political correctness.

“White feminism” as a derogatory term…

I’m white. And a feminist.

So what?

Think I kind of agree with you on this

They are now deliberately taking the piss out of being labelled terrorists. Something that could easily have been predicted they would do.

It makes a mockery of things

Not the “Four Horsemen” and for sure Dawkins doesn’t have any truck with gender identity. PZ Meyers on the other hand went very into trans activism.

But a lot of the young men (it was usually young men) who used to spend a lot of time on the internet scolding people who believed in god didn’t suddenly get a life, they moved onto scolding people who didn’t hold the right opinions about other issues.

This article talks about a schism
“This heightened salience of political identities significantly hampered the attempt to construct a collective ‘atheist’ identity. Instead, by the middle of the decade two rival and increasingly polarised camps had emerged, each offering radically different assessments of the problems facing the atheist movement and prescriptions for how to address them. On one side were those, typically located on the left of the political spectrum, who wanted the movement to be more politically progressive, inclusive and diverse, and who pushed for an expanded form of atheist identity connected to social justice issues. The other side, typically consisting of conservative and libertarian atheists, subscribed to a far narrower (and in their view, politically neutral) definition of atheism and saw calls for a broader interpretation as an attempt to claim ownership of the movement for the purposes of promoting a subversive political agenda…
As PZ Myers wrote (Reference Myers2012): ‘if we want to expand the movement … we need to recognize that social justice, equality, and fighting economic disparities must also be a significant part of our purpose’“

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-religion/article/whatever-happened-to-new-atheism-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-us-atheist-movement/03688167041AC608385038786679F664