The motion passed by the Green Party today is an attack on the Jewish community. It is an antisemitic platform, based on a grossly offensive distortion and erasure of Jewish experience and identity.
Zionism is anti-racism, creating a refuge for Jews in their ancient homeland after millennia of persecution outside it.
Branding most British Jews and Jewish institutions “racist” stokes anti-Jewish hatred after a year in which British Jews have been murdered attending their synagogue, stabbed in the streets, and seen their community buildings firebombed.
With this motion the Green Party has departed far from international consensus and exposed itself as an extremist party.
We stand with Jewish Greens, whose concerns have been rejected in the most callous way.
Prior to this motion we conveyed our concerns in the clearest terms to the party’s leadership. Those in the party who have spoken up against this motion must now say how they will oppose it.
We reserve particular criticism for Zack Polanski, who neither spoke against the motion nor voted. These are not the actions of a leader, but a bystander.
We welcome the cross-party condemnation and call on wider civil society to now relate to the Green Party for what it has become: an extremist party with a platform of anti-Jewish racism.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council