In a meeting of members Sunday in the UK the Green Party voted 54% in favor of designating support for the state of Israel as racism. Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, avoided that part of the party congress and didn’t vote. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar declared Zack Polanski persona non grata in Israel anyway. The Israeli Government issued a statement calling the Green Party’s declaration anti-Semitic under IHRA’s definition because it denied the Jewish people the right to self-determination.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews issued a statement on the Green Party’s decision:

“This motion passed by the Green Party 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.”

Protests against and in favor of the declaration took place outside the party conference, as well a more general call for the Green Party to return to its roots, with signs reading “Less Hamas, more trees.”

Jews and Arabs are not considered a race anymore but ethno-linguistic groupings. In archaic race theory both groups are considered the offspring of Shem, the son of Noah, which gave rise to the word anti-Semitism, Shem represented as -Sem-.

Photo: PA