Green council administration under pressure to clarify stance on party's 'Zionism is racism' motion

The Lib Dems have called on council leader Mark Blake to “make clear that all our Jewish residents are a welcome and equal part of Haringey’s society”, reports Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter

Green Party leader Zack Polanski with local party members (credit Haringey Greens)

Haringey’s Liberal Democrat councillors have slammed the national Green Party’s “Zionism is racism” motion as “a hostile move across the Jewish community”.

The Green Party of England and Wales adopted the motion at its annual conference in Brighton this week, “formally establishing it as an anti-Zionist party”.

As well as defining Zionism as racism, the motion also called for a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine”.

Both the UK government and United Nations (UN) advocate for a two-state solution to the long-running Israel-Palestine conflict.

In a vote, Green members in attendance at the party’s conference passed the anti-Zionism motion, with 1,022 votes in favour and 813 against.

The move has split members of the Greens – as well as drawing condemnation from members of other political groups. Today (Thursday 8th), Lib Dem councillors at Haringey Council released a statement condemning the move.

They called the motion a “a hostile move across the Jewish community” and one that would “not bring us any closer to peace in Gaza, to an end to settler violence in the West Bank, or to the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, or Hamas, from power”.

While the Green administration in Haringey has not responded to an approach for comment on the party’s motion, opposition councillors have criticised a supportive statement published on the Haringey Green Party website on Monday (5th), describing it as “greatly disappointing”.

The Lib Dems alleged that “instead of recognising the diverse strands of opinions within the Jewish community, and seeking to address the very real fears that many of our residents will have” Haringey Green Party “merely put out a template response defending their motion”.

The council’s eight Lib Dem members said that the council’s Green-minority administration and its leader Mark Blake “must make clear that all our Jewish residents are a welcome and equal part of Haringey’s society”.

Posts on the Haringey Green Party website do not come directly from the council – or the Green minority administration running it – and the statement does not mean the whole group of councillors supports the motion passed at the national party conference.

The occupied West Bank in Palestine (credit Joe Ives/LDRS)

Zionism first emerged in the late 19th Century as a movement to create a homeland for Jewish people. But the current Israeli government’s support for illegal settlements in the West Bank, as well as its war in Gaza where more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks since October 2023, have led to an upsurge in anti-Zionist sentiment worldwide.

The settlements have been described by the UN as “a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace”.

In September 2025, an independent UN commission also found that the Israeli government had “committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

Many argue that any explicitly anti-Zionist political policy, however, is inherently antisemitic because it denies the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.

The statement on the Haringey Green Party’s website argued that the “Zionism is racism” motion concerns Zionism “as a political ideology” responsible for the creation of an “ethnonationalist” state in Israel through the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians in historic Palestine.

The statement continued, outlining that “many Jewish members of the Green Party have campaigned for Palestinian liberation and against Zionism, including in support of this motion”, providing “an important reminder of why Judaism and Zionism must not be treated as interchangeable”.

“Palestinian freedom and Jewish safety are not competing principles. Haringey Green Party sincerely believes in both,” Haringey Greens added.

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