Jewish Greens chair says she may quit party after members back 'Zionism is racism' motion

The chair of Jewish Greens, Vivien Lichtenstein, has said she could leave the Green Party of England and Wales after its members voted to adopt a motion describing Zionism as a form of racism. In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Lichtenstein said her departure was "quite possible", though she stressed that she had not yet made a final decision. She said she was giving herself time to talk with colleagues before deciding on her future in the party.

The motion was passed at the party's autumn conference in Brighton by 1,022 votes to 813, following a debate that exposed sharp divisions among both members and senior figures. It was put forward by a group of activists and endorses the establishment of "a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine", a territory that includes modern-day Israel, with Jerusalem as its capital, equal rights for all, and the right of return for Palestinians and their descendants.

The motion also defines Zionism as an ideology that backs "an ethnonationalist Jewish state". Only a fraction of the party's roughly 230,000 members attended the conference and took part in the ballot, meaning the vote represented the will of those present rather than the entire membership. The outcome nevertheless carries weight as formal party policy, and it has drawn strong criticism from Jewish organisations and from Israel's foreign ministry, which described the move as beyond acceptable political debate.

Lichtenstein, a former chair of her local party, said she had opposed the motion from the moment she first learned of it. She argued that it would do nothing to ease the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, describing their devastation and the orphans left behind, nor would it help Palestinians in the West Bank who she said are currently being attacked and killed. In her view, the motion is neither helpful nor consequential for the people it claims to champion.

Beyond her practical objections, Lichtenstein said the motion "crosses a line". One reason, she explained, is that its proposers claimed to have consulted some Jewish voices but failed to consult Jewish Greens, who she believes could have offered amendments to improve the text. She said there is a "vast range" of opinion within Jewish Greens, with some members supporting the motion entirely, others backing only parts of it, and others opposing it outright. Some Jewish Greens also support the idea of a single state, she added.

Lichtenstein described herself as "both Zionist and anti-Zionist" depending on how the term is defined, and said a central problem with the motion is that Zionism has many competing definitions. She said she was not worried about being accused of supporting Israel's right to exist and therefore being labelled a racist, insisting that charge is false. Her deeper concern is that the Green Party could end up branding UK, Israeli or Jewish organisations, including groups that partner with Palestinians, as racist.

She said she supports many of those organisations, noting that they work against the occupation and some even go out on the ground to assist Palestinians. She also revealed that she knows non-Jewish members who are planning to leave the party because they believe the motion crosses a line, and because their professional work could be jeopardised by association with a party that has adopted "Zionism is racism" as official policy. Asked whether antisemitism exists within the party, including at senior levels, she said there are "certainly some antisemites in the party" but that she had not personally experienced it at senior level.

The party's leader, Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, had urged conference delegates to amend the motion. He called for protections for Jewish members to be added and for the reference to a "single democratic Palestinian State" to be removed. Both amendments were defeated. Polanski did not remain at conference for the votes on the amendments or on the substantive motion, having left early to campaign in Holborn and St Pancras, where he is standing in a by-election. In response to the motion, Israel's foreign ministry said it had barred Polanski from entering the country.

A Green Party spokeswoman insisted that the party would protect Jewish members and that they would not be persecuted for attending synagogues which define themselves as Zionist. Speaking after the vote, Lubna Speitan, the Green member who brought the motion, argued that its supporters wanted to voice opposition to "racist systems of oppression". She said the party stands united against all forms of racism and discrimination, with no exemptions.

The parliamentary party was largely opposed to the motion, even as the wider leadership was split. Co-deputy leader Rachel Millward told the Today programme on Friday that she considered the motion "problematic", while her counterpart Mothin Ali told the BBC on Saturday that he would support it in its original form. That divergence reflects a broader internal argument about how the party should position itself on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and whether the language of the motion helps or harms its stated anti-racist aims.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council condemned the motion, saying that "Zionism is anti-racism, creating a refuge for Jews in their ancient homeland after millennia of persecution outside it". The Movement for Progressive Judaism, one of the largest and most liberal strands of Judaism in the UK, also released a statement rejecting the motion, which it called "antisemitic in its formulation and intention". It added that Jewish self-determination is a right and that declaring it racist amounts to an attack on Jewish people.

The controversy also raises questions about the party's broader policy on the conflict. Lichtenstein noted that existing Green policy holds that it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to choose their future, whether that means one state or two. The UK and 11 allies support a two-state solution, which would recognise a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli one, a framework Israel rejects. By endorsing a single state in all of historic Palestine, the conference motion places the party at odds with that international consensus.

For Lichtenstein, the dispute is personal as well as political. She must now weigh her longstanding involvement in the party against a policy she believes is damaging and poorly drafted. Her decision, whichever way it goes, will be watched closely as a signal of how Jewish members experience the Greens after a vote that has already prompted some to consider walking away. The party leadership, meanwhile, faces the task of reconciling a membership-driven policy with its pledge to protect Jewish members and its ambition to present itself as a home for anti-racism in British politics.