Why the Green Party’s “Zionism Is Racism” Motion Is Wrong

Key points

What to understand first

National self-determination does not become racism when the nation is Jewish.
Zionism is older and far more diverse than any Israeli government or party.
Jewish and Palestinian self-determination can coexist.
The European Green Party itself unequivocally distanced itself from the motion.
The United Nations revoked its 1975 “Zionism is racism” determination in 1991.

Primary source2026

The policy being examined

The Green Party’s own announcement records the adoption of its anti-Zionist policy by 1,022 votes to 813. This page critiques the argument, not Green Party voters or the motives of those who proposed it.

101

The double standard

Palestinian people

A people with history and national identity

National self-determination: supported

Jewish people

A people with documented ancient history, national identity and origins in the Land of Israel

National self-determination: labelled Zionism—and condemned as racist

More than 130 states formed since 1940

India, Pakistan, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Indonesia, Cyprus and dozens more

Right to exist: taken for granted

Israel, founded 1948

The world’s only Jewish-majority state

Right to exist: the motion backs a single state across historic Palestine—replacing the Jewish state altogether

Why?

Of all the states born in the same decades, only one—the Jewish state—is singled out for dissolution. 101 104

The post-1940 world: why is only one state targeted for dissolution?

The motion is not a critique of a policy. By declaring the party anti-Zionist and supporting a single state throughout historic Palestine, it calls for Israel to cease to exist as a Jewish state. 101

When the United Nations was founded in 1945 it had 51 members. Today it has 193. Most of the world’s countries became independent, were partitioned or were created after 1940. 104

Middle East and North Africa: Lebanon (1943), Syria and Jordan (1946), Israel (1948), Libya (1951), Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan (1956), Kuwait (1961), Algeria (1962), Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE (1971).
South and Southeast Asia: the Philippines (1946), India and Pakistan (1947), Sri Lanka and Myanmar (1948), Indonesia (1949), Malaysia (1957), Singapore (1965), Bangladesh (1971).
Europe: Iceland (1944), Cyprus (1960), Malta (1964), the post-Soviet states (1991), the post-Yugoslav states (1990s–2000s), the Czech Republic and Slovakia (1993).
Africa: dozens of states from Ghana (1957), Nigeria and Senegal (1960) and Kenya (1963) to Namibia (1990), Eritrea (1993) and South Sudan (2011).

Many of these states were born through war, partition and the movement of millions of people—the 1947 partition of India among them. No mainstream British or European party calls for any of them to be dismantled.

Dissolving Israel into a single state would end Jewish self-determination and return Jews to the minority status that made Zionism necessary in the first place. Israel alone is asked to justify its existence.

National self-determination does not become racism when the nation is Jewish

Self-determination concerns a people’s ability to determine its political future. It does not automatically mean racial superiority, ethnic purity, removal of minorities or denial of civil rights.

Israel’s non-Jewish citizens vote, form parties, serve in parliament and the judiciary, work throughout public institutions and practise their religions. Arab Christian and Muslim justices have served on Israel’s Supreme Court, and Muslim, Christian, Druze, Bahá’í and other communities maintain active religious life. 43 44 45 46 47 52 54

The existence of a Jewish nation-state is therefore not synonymous with excluding everyone who is not Jewish.

Criticism of Israel is not anti-Zionism

Political criticism concerns what a state does. Anti-Zionism concerns whether Jewish national self-determination should exist. A person can oppose a prime minister, coalition, war, settlement policy or military decision and still believe that Israel has a right to exist.

Zionism does not place an Israeli government beyond criticism. It answers a different question: whether the Jewish people are entitled to collective self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

Zionism is not Netanyahu

Zionism existed before Benjamin Netanyahu was born, before Likud and before Israel itself existed. The First Zionist Congress met in 1897. Zionist traditions have included socialists, liberals, religious Jews, atheists, left-wing activists, right-wing activists and supporters of territorial compromise. 2 19 70

Defining that historical diversity through the policies of one government is historically incoherent.

The motion redefines Zionism before condemning it

The motion’s official description defines Zionism through “ethnonationalism” and domination, then condemns the definition it has constructed. 101

Zionism ordinarily refers, at minimum, to Jewish national self-determination in the Jewish historical homeland. Its labour, liberal, cultural, religious and revisionist traditions have disagreed profoundly about society, territory, religion and diplomacy. 1 2 19

Defining an entire movement by its most hostile interpretation does not establish that every form of the actual movement fits that definition.

What Zionism requires—and what it does not

At minimum

What Zionism requires

Jewish national self-determination in the Jewish people’s historic homeland.

Not inherent

What Zionism does not require

Jewish racial superiority
expulsion of Arabs
support for settlements
support for any prime minister or party
opposition to Palestinian rights or statehood
religious government
control of every part of biblical Israel

Even the European Green movement rejected this approach

The European Green Party responded the day after the motion passed. It said the resolution went against its agreed position and “unequivocally” distanced itself from the motion. It reaffirmed national self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians and “the equal right of Israel and Palestine to exist as sovereign states.” 102

This matters because the objection did not come only from Zionist organisations or political opponents of the Green Party. The wider European Green movement rejected the motion’s approach.

The UN already abandoned “Zionism is racism”

Chronology

The UN record

1975
Resolution 3379
The UN General Assembly determined that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” 31
1991
Resolution 46/86
The General Assembly revoked that determination by 111 votes to 25, with 13 abstentions. 32

A UN vote does not by itself settle a moral argument. The precise factual point is that the famous UN determination no longer exists: it was formally revoked more than three decades ago. 31 32

Jews are a people, not simply followers of a religion

Jewish identity includes overlapping elements of peoplehood, ancestry, religion, language, culture, history, collective memory and national identity. A secular atheist can be Jewish. Survey research likewise identifies Jews by religion and Jews of no religion, and finds that Jewish adults describe their identity through religion, ancestry and culture in varied combinations. 103

The question is therefore not “why should followers of a religion have a religious state?” Zionism concerns the national self-determination of a historic people.

Jews did not choose a random country

Zionism centred the Land of Israel because Jewish civilisation originated there. Ancient Israel and Judah, Jerusalem, Hebrew, the First and Second Temples, Roman Judaea, continuing Jewish communities, centuries of prayer for return and the Old Yishuv all preceded modern political Zionism. 3 4 5 17 20 22 23 79 80

Calling Jews foreign to the place where Jewish peoplehood developed reverses the historical chronology. This website understands the return of a dispersed people to its ancestral homeland as national restoration and decolonisation.

Zionism does not require Palestinian displacement

The proposition “Jews have a right to self-determination” does not logically entail “Palestinians must be expelled.” They are separate propositions.

A national movement is not accurately defined solely by the worst act attributed to people acting in its name. Zionism’s minimum proposition remains Jewish national self-determination; displacement is not part of that definition.

Jewish and Palestinian self-determination can coexist

Jewish self-determination

does not require

Palestinian non-existence

Palestinian self-determination

does not require

Jewish non-existence

The European Green Party’s support for the self-determination of both peoples demonstrates that rejecting the motion does not require rejecting Palestinian national aspirations. 102

Why the motion is discriminatory in principle

Jews, Israel and Zionist movements are not immune from political criticism. The discriminatory principle appears when Jewish national self-determination is treated as inherently racist while the same principle is defended as legitimate for other peoples.

If national self-determination is legitimate for peoples in principle, Jewish peoplehood cannot uniquely disqualify Jews from that principle.

The Green Party motion gets Zionism wrong

The Green Party is entitled to criticise Israel, Israeli governments and Israeli policies. None of those positions requires declaring Zionism itself racist.

Zionism predates Israel and every present government. It emerged from the much older Jewish relationship with the Land of Israel and the modern demand that Jews, like other peoples, should be capable of national self-determination.

Jewish self-determination is not racial supremacy. Jewish history is not racism. Jewish connection to Israel is not racism. Jews should not uniquely be told that their national self-determination is racist.

Evidence

Sources for this article

S1
Holocaust Survivors and the Establishment of the State of Israel
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Modern Zionism, Herzl, the Holocaust and statehood.
S2
The First Zionist Congress and Basel Program
National Library of Israel. The programme adopted by the First Zionist Congress.
S3
The Old Yishuv
National Library of Israel. Long-established Jewish communities before the First Aliyah.
S4
Cyrus and the Judean Diaspora
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Israel, Judah, deportations and Persian-period return.
S5
World Between Empires: Judaea
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Roman Judaea, revolts and Hadrianic reorganisation.
S17
Eastern Mediterranean and Syria, 1000 BCE–1 CE
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Babylonian destruction, deportation and Persian return.
S19
History of Zionism
National Library of Israel. Old Yishuv, First Aliyah and the modern movement.
S20
The Stela of Merneptah
Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. Early extra-biblical reference to a people called Israel.
S22
The Amidah: Jerusalem, return and redemption
Sefaria. Traditional petitions for gathering exiles, rebuilding Jerusalem and restoration.
S23
Passover Haggadah: “Next year in Jerusalem”
Sefaria. Medievally documented liturgical expression of longing for Jerusalem.
S31
General Assembly Resolution 3379
United Nations. Resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism and racial discrimination.
S32
General Assembly Resolution 46/86
United Nations. Revocation of Resolution 3379 by a vote of 111–25 with 13 abstentions.
S43
Israel’s population on the eve of Independence Day 2026
Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Population estimate of 2.157 million Arabs, 21.1 percent of the resident population.
S44
Ra’am joins Israel’s governing coalition
Reuters. First independent Arab party to become a formal member of an Israeli governing coalition.
S45
Katsav sentenced to seven years
Ynet / Associated Press. George Karra presided over the district-court panel that convicted former President Moshe Katsav.
S46
Court cuts Olmert sentence to 18 months
Reuters / Ynet. Salim Joubran sat on the five-justice Supreme Court panel deciding Ehud Olmert’s appeal.
S47
Khaled Kabub sworn in as Supreme Court’s first permanent Muslim justice
Times of Israel. Kabub’s permanent appointment to Israel’s Supreme Court.
S52
Protection of Holy Places Law
Government of Israel. Protection against desecration and interference with access to holy places.
S54
International Religious Freedom Report: Israel
US Department of State. Legal protections, recognised communities, restrictions and reported religious-freedom concerns.
S70
The Jewish State
Theodor Herzl / Jewish Virtual Library transcript. Herzl’s pre-Holocaust case for Jewish political sovereignty.
S79
The Tel Dan Stele
The Jewish Museum. Extra-biblical reference to the House of David and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
S80
The Assyrian Campaign in Judah as told in the Sennacherib Prism
The Israel Museum. Assyrian record naming Judah, Hezekiah and Jerusalem.
S101
Green Party adopts anti-Zionist policy
Green Party of England and Wales. Official notice that the motion passed 1,022–813, established an anti-Zionist policy and defined Zionism as an ethnonationalist political project.
S102
EGP position on Motion “Zionism is racism” at GPEW Congress
European Green Party. The European Green Party unequivocally distanced itself from the motion and reaffirmed self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians.
S103
Jewish Americans in 2020
Pew Research Center. Documents Jewish identity as religion, ancestry and culture, including adults who identify as Jews of no religion.
S104
Growth in United Nations membership
United Nations. Records UN membership rising from 51 founding members in 1945 to 193 member states, with admission dates for each state.

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