Zionism is Definitely Racism: The Historic Anti-Zionist Vote That's Challenging Settler-Colonialism

In a political landscape where major establishment parties across the West have long enforced a suffocating, bipartisan consensus of unconditional support for the Israeli state, a massive tremor has shaken British politics. At its annual autumn conference in Brighton, the rank-and-file membership of the Green Party of England and Wales did what no other major UK political party has dared to do: they passed a binding policy motion explicitly defining Zionism as a form of racism.

This watershed moment—passed by an overwhelming majority of 1,022 to 813 votes—is a testament to the power of grassroots organizing. It reflects how deeply the Palestine solidarity movement has transformed political consciousness, breaking through the brick wall of parliamentary complacence. As reported by Democracy Now!, the historic vote serves as a stark reminder that while institutional political leaders often lag behind, the multi-year mobilization of working-class people and anti-imperialists can pierce through the orthodoxies of the political establishment.

Dismantling the Ethno-Nationalist Consensus

The motion adopted by Green Party members goes far beyond symbolic rhetoric. In addition to denouncing Zionism as a structural ideology rooted in the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, the policy commits the party to supporting a single democratic state across historic Palestine with equal rights for all, a guaranteed right of return for Palestinians, a total arms embargo on Israel, and full-throated backing of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

For decades, mainstream political discourse has insulated Zionism from the critical analytical tools applied to every other form of ethno-nationalism and colonial dominance. By cutting through this hypocrisy, the Green Party rank-and-file aligned themselves with the lived reality of Palestinians. As detailed in Middle East Eye, the motion's defenders pointed out that Zionism manifests materially as an ethno-nationalist project built on ethnic cleansing and structural supremacy—a system that anti-racists cannot and should not compromise with.

Predictably, the political establishment and corporate media rushed to pearl-clutch and defend the status quo. The Zionist lobby and right-wing political actors reacted with fury. In The Guardian, coverage highlighted the heavy backlash from establishment figures, including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who predictably leaned on weaponized smears of antisemitism to shield a settler-colonial project from critique.

Yet, as analysts interviewed by Truthout noted, this hysteria ignores the tectonic shifts in global public opinion. The decades-long cover story provided to the Israeli occupation is cracking under the weight of its own atrocities, particularly following the years of genocide in Gaza that forced even liberal and social-democratic voters to break away from business-as-usual politics.

The Imperialist Backlash and State Retaliation

The fury of the Israeli state was swift and authoritarian. Within hours of the vote, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs lashed out, absurdly comparing the left-wing British political party to Hamas and demanding that the UK Labour Party denounce the conference's decision.

More concretely, as highlighted by The New Arab, the Israeli government immediately barred Green Party leader Zack Polanski from entering the country in retaliation. By weaponizing travel bans and diplomatic tantrums, the Israeli state demonstrated its utter intolerance for any political space that dares to name its foundational ideology for what it is.

The retaliation also exposed profound internal contradictions within the Green Party itself. Polanski—who is Jewish and was away campaigning for an upcoming parliamentary by-election in Keir Starmer’s former seat of Holborn and St. Pancras—did not cast a vote on the motion. His absence, alongside the vocal opposition of four of the party's five MPs and co-deputy leader Rachel Millward, laid bare the ongoing tension between radical rank-and-file organizers and cautious, careerist parliamentary leadership. While Polanski later acknowledged that the displacement central to Zionism is "clearly racist," his hesitation and the open opposition from the party's MPs underscore how institutional figures often flinch when grassroots movements actually challenge the imperial core.

A Legacy of Anti-Imperialist Resistance

The historic vote in Brighton did not happen in a vacuum; it stands in a long lineage of global anti-imperialist resistance. As Al Jazeera details in its historical mapping of the phrase, equating Zionism with racism recalls the pivotal 1975 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379—sponsored by a coalition of the Soviet bloc, Arab nations, and African countries fighting apartheid—which recognized Zionism as a form of racial discrimination before it was later repealed under intense U.S. and Western pressure in 1991.

Furthermore, the Green Party’s decision echoes the courageous analytical work carried out by anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as the resilience of independent activists, academics, and socialists who have faced professional ruin for speaking these truths. It mirrors the legal victories of figures like David Miller in the UK, proving that the ideological foundations of Zionism cannot permanently evade anti-racist scrutiny.

A Path Forward for the Left

The developments within the Green Party offer a critical lesson for socialists, anti-imperialists, and anti-capitalists across the globe: the narrative can be broken, but only from below.

The frantic threats from foreign governments, the hand-wringing of liberal parliamentarians, and the hand-slapping from domestic establishment figures like the Labour leadership—who are already facing calls to rule out coalitions with the Greens—prove that the ruling class is terrified of this vocabulary entering mainstream Western politics. When a political party officially drops the polite fictions of "two-state" tokenism and names Zionism as a driver of racism and apartheid, it opens the door for a genuine decolonial politics.

For anti-capitalists, recognizing Zionism as racism is an essential pillar of internationalist solidarity. Capitalism and imperialism rely on militarized borders, racial hierarchies, and dispossessed populations to maintain global power. By standing with Palestine, breaking the bipartisan consensus, and refusing to sanitize settler-colonialism, the rank-and-file of the Green Party have set a standard. The task for socialists and anti-imperialists now is to push that momentum forward, defending the grassroots against institutional backlash and ensuring that anti-Zionism remains a non-negotiable cornerstone of the global working class.