Does the Green Party support Hamas’s aims? We’ll find out this weekend

Is Zionism racism? The Green Party is scheduled to debate a motion at its conference on Saturday which states that it is. In recent weeks, the party’s leader, Zack Polanski, has had media interviewers ask what he thinks. Every time, his response has been to argue around the various definitions of Zionism, while being clear that his view is that the current Israeli government is both racist and genocidal in its war in Gaza. His ultimate answer to the question? For him, it depends what you mean by Zionism.

Yet the TV media questions and Polanski’s answers give the impression that neither the interviewers nor their interviewee have read and understood the motion, which is much more than just its provocative title. Nick Robinson’s recent interview with Polanski on BBC Radio 4 was typical of this genre.

Ultimately, whether they realise it or not, members who sign up to Motion E12: “Zionism is Racism”, are being called on to support the belief that armed force should be used to ensure Israel ceases to exist, and that it should be replaced by a single Palestinian state in the whole territory, from the river to the sea.

The other effective actions are all means towards that single end: boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel; a call for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners; the de-proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group in the UK (largely overtaken now by the High Court decision ruling the proscription unlawful, albeit stayed pending a government appeal); the release of pro-Palestinian prisoners in the UK; support for those prisoners’ ever-changing political demands.

Motion E12: “Zionism is Racism”, supports the belief that armed force should be used to ensure Israel ceases to exist

A clause calling for the party to reject both the IHRA definition and the Jerusalem Declaration on antisemitism was ruled out of order on the procedural basis that it was a proposal for internal party management rather than external political action. A separate motion would be needed for that.

When I say this motion calls for the overthrow of Israel by the actual armed Palestinian groups – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, etc – I get two types of responses. The first accuse me of a malicious misreading of the motion to discredit it and its supporters. The second say the motion absolutely does call for the armed overthrow of Israel, and rightly so.

Let me clear up any dispute about the motion’s effective text. Clause 3 says: “The Green Party supports the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine”. No mention is made of whether this would be with or without the consent of Israelis.

Clause 4 of the motion calls on the Greens to affirm “the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation, and acknowledges that the struggle to achieve that liberation by all available means under international law is legitimate.”

Most members – including me – aren’t experts on international law or even on the means available to the Palestinians. The motion itself doesn’t specify what its proposer, Lubna Speitan, considers these to be either. However, in the penultimate paragraph of the 12 pages of briefing notes which accompanied the motion, we get her interpretation: “The right of peoples under colonial domination, alien subjugation, apartheid and racist regimes to resist, including through armed struggle [emphasis mine], is affirmed in multiple UN instruments…” The paragraph goes on to repeat the phrase “armed struggle” approvingly twice more.

In case any member missed it, and it appears that almost everyone did, Speitan usefully added in a party-internal comment thread below the motion in response to another member: “On the right to resist: Care has been taken in affirming this right, which under international law includes ‘armed struggle’ for oppressed peoples. This is clearly quoted in the motion. We must be careful not to deny or undermine these rights.” The words “armed struggle” don’t appear at all in the motion itself, so it appears Speitan had conflated its effective text with the briefing notes.

The motion is an attempt by the most militant faction of pro-Palestinian activists to get a party ideologically committed to peacebuilding and cooperation to convert its general sympathy for the situation of Palestinians into support for militarism and the destruction of a sovereign state, which, as all Palestinian ‘armed struggle’ has shown so far, would lead to the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

As a Green Party member, I decided to table two brief amendments to the text. It’s not permissible to make amendments which negate motions, so I took a different approach.

My aim was to clarify the text of the motion itself, based on the notes that accompany it, solely so that party members truly understand the implications of what they are being asked to vote for. In the section about supporting a single Palestinian state, I inserted that the party should back “the armed overthrow of Israel” to make that possible. In the part about affirming the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance by “all available means under international law” I inserted “including through armed struggle”, thus mirroring the exact words of the briefing note which interprets the motion.

Both amendments were promptly ruled out of order by the committee that runs conference as being contrary to the philosophical basis of the party, which includes the core value that “we look for non-violent solutions to conflict situations, which take into account the interests of minorities and future generations in order to achieve lasting settlements.” But if it’s beyond the pale to explicitly call for the armed overthrow of Israel, why is it any better to do that implicitly, as the original motion does via its accompanying notes?

I also reached out directly to the ‘Greens for Palestine’ group promoting the motion, to ask whether the text as written supports Palestinian armed struggle against Israel. Their reply merely that the text was “self-explanatory” only confirmed that the group is apparently hoping to benefit from that ambiguity.

But who and what is behind the motion? Its origin appears to lie in a now-defunct group, Protect Palestine. In September 2025 it advertised a public meeting in Birmingham, saying: “The world must unite for military intervention against Israel to stop their genocide of Palestinians and to dismantle the entire Zionist settler colonial project across historic Palestine.” In other words, destroy Israel by force. The group’s stated values included: “We affirm the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation and colonial domination, including by armed resistance, as enshrined in international law”.

Lubna Speitan was an invited speaker at the event, saying: “We [Palestinians] have literally been betrayed by the world leaders, including our own. The liberation will not come from them. The only way forward for any liberation of any people is going to be by force. What’s taken by force must be returned by force. And this comes with military intervention. And for me, I support our right to the armed struggle. We must never deny that.”

Speitan and fellow Greens for Palestine steering group member, Tariq Khawaja, held a webinar last month to promote the motion to party members. They invited two speakers to talk in favour: Haim Bresheeth-Zabner and Franck Magennis. Bresheeth-Zabner is a retired film studies academic and a vociferous anti-Zionist activist of Israeli origin. Magennis is a barrister and self-described revolutionary communist. His legal work specialises in anti-Zionist claims and causes, including representing Hamas pro bono in a bid to have the group de-proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK. He too was an invited speaker at the 2025 Protect Palestine meeting.

At the webinar, Bresheeth-Zabner was billed as the founder of Jewish Network for Palestine (JNP). The group is listed as a supporter in the briefing notes to the motion, albeit under the erroneous name “Jewish Network for Peace”. On 12 October 2023, JNP published a lengthy article praising the Hamas attacks five days earlier. Titled “The Al-Aqsa Deluge is welcome anti-colonial resistance,” it enthuses: “[T]he 7th October operation was a welcome role-reversal. The Palestinian resistance built its capacity to take the offensive and punish Israel’s crimes. This has pushed Israeli society to face some consequences of its complicity.” In other words, Israeli civilians had it coming.

It is clear to me that the motion, as per its supporting notes, calls on the Green Party to support the actually existing armed Palestinian groups such as Hamas and their allies in destroying Israel

It continues: “The role-reversal also features hostages. […] As the only available option, the Palestinian resistance has taken Israeli captives in order to bargain for the release of their hostages. Hamas has offered to release Israeli women and children in exchange for the release of Palestinian women hostages. This is a modest step towards redressing the power imbalance between colonized and colonizer.” This is the kind of rhetoric that is now considered acceptable adjacent to some Green party circles: outright praise and justification for lethal attacks and hostage-taking directed specifically against civilians.

Jewish Network for Palestine’s rhetoric is mirrored by the International Jewish Antizionist Network (IJAN), a US-based group with a UK chapter, also listed in the briefing notes as supporting the “Zionism is Racism” motion. IJAN has described October 7  as “a turning point in the fight for Palestinian self-determination. It is a day that lies at the heart of the mass movement it incited – for Palestinian liberation, the preservation of all humanity, and the very survival of our planet.”

Magennis’s contributions to the Greens for Palestine webinar are notable for his characteristic talent for saying the quiet part out loud. Giving a point-by-point assessment of the motion, he said: “Paragraph 4 talks about ‘The struggle to achieve that liberation by all available means under international law.’

Implied in the motion’s logic is that freedom, for Palestinians at least, is just a lot more dead Jews away

That’s a euphemistic way of saying that the Palestinians have a right to armed struggle and that we should support it.” Later, Magennis responded to a question about sanctions against Israel by cautioning supporters: “We shouldn’t overstate the role of sanctions. The most important thing is to proclaim our support for the Palestinian armed struggle.” Khawaja responded: “Absolutely.”

Ultimately the “Zionism is Racism” motion is about far more than its title suggests. It is clear in my mind that the motion, as per its supporting notes, calls on the Green Party to support existing armed Palestinian groups such as Hamas and their allies in destroying Israel and setting up a single Palestinian state. Implied in the motion’s logic is that freedom, for Palestinians at least, is just a lot more dead Jews away.

Green members are rarely short of criticisms and objections to Israel’s actions. I have plenty myself. But whatever we individually or collectively think is wrong, as we vote on this motion we have to decide: is this alternative right? As a debating question, “Is Zionism racism?” has huge scope for dancing around the issue. As a proposal, vague in the motion itself but clear in the supporting notes, “Should the Green Party support Hamas and its allies in an armed overthrow of Israel?” does not.

On Saturday, Green Party members will have to decide whether to support or oppose this motion. I joined the Greens to help to resolve conflicts, not to support warmongering and terrorism towards a goal that even on its own terms is disaster.

I will emphatically oppose this motion. I can only hope the party as a whole will do the same.

• Adrian Short has been a member of the Greens since earlier this year. More than half the Party’s membership has joined within the last few months.