Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, has been informed he will not be permitted to enter Israel following his party's adoption of a position characterising Zionism as a form of racism. Israel's foreign ministry described the resolution, adopted on Sunday, as antisemitic — a designation that also resulted in a ban on Polanski, despite his absence from the vote.
The resolution was put forward by Green member Lubna Speitan, who defined Zionism's practical effects as including the ongoing displacement, loss of rights, and destruction experienced by Palestinians. Speitan told those gathered that the party held a unified position against all forms of racism and discrimination without distinction. Separately, a number of British Jews have stated that they view the motion's framing of Zionism as a form of racism as targeting them personally.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council put forward the position that Zionism functions as a form of anti-racism, having established a place of safety for Jewish people within a territory they regard as their historical homeland following centuries of displacement and persecution elsewhere.
Two sets of objections were levelled at the Green Party from opposing quarters. The first held that characterising the bulk of British Jews and their communal institutions as holding prejudiced views risked inflaming hostility toward a community that had already seen worshippers killed, people assaulted on public streets, and buildings belonging to Jewish organisations destroyed by fire. The second contended that the party's stated position effectively lent support to the dissolution of the State of Israel.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced that Polanski would not be permitted to enter Israel. The country's foreign ministry issued a statement contending that the Green Party in Britain had passed a resolution it characterised as equating Zionism with racism, endorsing armed struggle against Israel, and calling for a Palestinian state spanning the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — a formulation the ministry interpreted as incompatible with Israel's continued existence.
At the start of September, the Foreign Secretary set out measures to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including a bar on goods imported from those areas and financial penalties targeting businesses and individuals operating within them. The steps drew objections from both Israel and the United States.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told reporters that Israeli authorities had allowed violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank to go unchecked — conduct he characterised as amounting to forced displacement of a population — and that he would not stand by while prospects for a two-state arrangement were dismantled. Foreign Minister Sa'ar subsequently announced that retaliatory measures would be put in place against the UK sanctions and that the British consulate in Jerusalem would be shut down.
