The righteous racism of the British Greens is a warning to America | Opinion - Newsweek

In a display of characteristic idiocy, a group of Green Party members assembled at the foot of the steps in its conference hall in Brighton, England, last week to sing “From The River To The Sea” and answer questions from the media about its new resolution, making it official policy that “Zionism is racism."

Activists were asked what they would say to Jewish people who were aggrieved at being labeled racists for supporting the existence of Israel. The prevailing response seemed to be that they should “educate themselves” and “read some books."

Of course! The Jews need to understand that they’ve been wrong about this. If only Jews understood being Jewish as well as the Greens.

The Greens are the most hardline progressive, woke and Gaza-obsessed major political party in Britain. Their standing in the polls has fallen from 20 to 10 percent nationally in the past year, according to an average of the U.K.'s major polling trackers, though they retain five Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.

The motion “Zionism is racism," proposed by the “Greens For Palestine” group, was passed 1,022 in favor to 813 against at the conference. The party leader, Zack Polanski, described it as an “unhelpful distraction." He and some other senior party figures stayed away from the conference for the debate and the vote, so he can probably add cynicism to his list of dubious leadership qualities. His deputy Mothin Ali was there and voted in favor.

Don’t bet against Polanski being ousted soon for being insufficiently “pure.” This is a party with a candidate (Raja Ateeq) who called Jews “cockroaches” on social media in 2023, after all.

As if this wasn’t enough, a proposed amendment to the motion, one that set out to protect Jewish Greens from disciplinary action if they were affiliated to a synagogue or other organization that supported Israel’s right to exist, was voted down 1,026 to 684.

In other words, the Greens have designated at least 90 percent of Britain’s Jews as racist, while Jewish Greens (there are still some out there) are guilty of racism by association unless they disavow their links to their place of worship.

This mindset already exists in the United States, and it will be interesting to see if it too becomes “official” among socialist groups. Anti-Israel and antisemitic activism is the funnel into which all progressive beliefs fall.

Hardline progressive politics is a Trojan horse for political Islam, and so anti-Zionism performs an essential role as the cause that brings together ultra-left progressives and ultra-conservative Muslims. These two groups have nothing in common, but anti-Zionism provides that missing special something.

In 2019, I interviewed the then co-leader of the Greens. In the seven years since, that organization has disappeared, swallowed by the cranks and Islamists who devoured their host and turned an environmentalist party into one obsessed with Israel.

The white, middle-class progressives speak with the goggle-eyed zeal of cult members. They are the kinds of people, you suspect, who, were there to be a revolution, would volunteer to be the bureaucrats who draw up lists of enemies of the new order to be put up against a wall. Eichmann would be so proud.

These activists, seen on campus in the United States and in the wilder corners of the Democratic Socialists of America, are the true avatars of George Orwell’s warnings. Racism as anti-racism; bigotry as kindness; lies as truth.

In order to codify their ideology, the Greens had to redefine a word (this is something they love doing, having already decided “mother” and “father” were “unacceptable," replacing them with the gender-neutral "parents or carers," The Telegraph reported last week).

The subjects of the word “Zionism," AKA Jews, have always interpreted it as the right to self-determination in a Jewish state. Now the Greens say the word is inherently evil, denoting genocide and apartheid. The climate of hostility this language has helped grow since the war in Gaza began contributes to the discrimination, abuse and deadly violence Jews in the West face today. This is the true meaning of “globalize the Intifada."

A suspicious person would see the Greens as disingenuous. They either know the toxic effect of this language, which means they are happy to encourage it, or they are too dumb to join the dots from a belief that has already caused antisemitic murders in Britain. As so often with such people, it is hard to tell when stupidity ends, and wickedness begins.

A reform synagogue rabbi and Green member was interviewed in Brighton after the motion was passed and said she felt “unsafe." As well as feeling sympathy for the woman, it was tempting to ask, “Haven’t you been paying attention for the past three years?”

The sheer crankery of the Greens may cause their eventual downfall. It can only be hoped that this latest disgraceful episode hurts them even further and the vast majority of British people see it for what it is.

But do not be in any doubt, America. The Greens will also be mobilizing in your towns and cities. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Greens’ policy a "stain on the history of the United Kingdom," and you don’t have to be a Zionist, let alone a supporter of the Israeli government, to agree with that.

George Chesterton is Newsweek's Director, Publishing & Subscription Strategy.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.