Why Zionism Is Not A Form Of Racism
The Green Party in the UK is currently voting on a motion that would define Zionism as racism
Yesterday, the UK Green Party—currently led by a Jewish man, Zack Polanski—failed to vote on a proposed party conference motion that attempted to defined Zionism as racism, as well as defining the UK Green Party as an explicitly anti-Zionist political party.
The motion, known as E12, had survived an earlier attempt to rule it out of order after members voted 585 against blocking it, and conference later agreed to move it higher up the agenda.
But despite that, the first day of the Green Party’s online spring conference ended before any substantive debate on the motion could be completed or a final vote held. The motion will have to wait until their next online conference, which will take place in the autumn. The day was disrupted by technical problems, procedural wrangling and repeated no-confidence motions. Supporters of E12 argued that the process had effectively been filibustered.
From my perspective, I would be very surprised if the Green Party does not adopt this motion sooner or later. More and more, under the leadership of Polanski and his deputy Mothin Ali, the Greens have tried to define themselves via both criticism of the Israeli government, and more generally opposition to Israel. This is part of a larger trend in ecological movements. More and more, I am seeing a tendency of moving away from specifically ecological issues like climate change. Instead “ecological” movements are moving towards clickier and catchier culture war counterpunching around issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Meanwhile, some of Polanski’s Jewish relatives have disowned him, describing him as “like he’s a chicken, telling us to vote for KFC”.
So, what are the arguments put forward to suggest that Zionism is a form of racism?
The case made by anti-Zionists (above all else) is that when a state defines itself first and foremost as Jewish, rather than simply as a state of all its citizens, it inevitably privileges Jews over non-Jews—above all, over the Palestinians.
In this reading, the founding of Israel cannot be separated from the Nakba. They claim that the mass displacement of Palestinians during the war of 1947-48 was essential to the Zionist cause because they believe that Zionism is a settler-colonial project that inherently required the removal or subordination of the Arab population. The charge of racism follows from that. If the success of the project depended on demographic engineering, then discrimination was built into it.
Although I am a Palestinian, I don’t agree with these assessments.
From my understanding, Zionism is a form of nationalism, not a form of racism. These are different things. Understanding the differences is important.
Some Zionists (like any other form of nationalists) may be racist. But I don’t think that racism is inherent to any form of nationalism.
Racism and nationalism can overlap in practice, and often do. For example, if one believes that Jews have a right to a state because they believe that Jews are a superior people and Palestinians do not have a right to a state because they believe that Palestinians are an inferior people, then that is clearly a racist view. Right? And, obviously, the same thing would also apply in the reverse. Claiming that Israelis are an inferior people is just as racist as claiming that Palestinians are an inferior people.
So what are we really arguing about?
At its core: Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people are a people with the right to national self-determination in their ancestral homeland. One may disagree with aspects of how that aspiration was pursued historically. One may absolutely disagree with certain outcomes on the ground.
But the thing is, Zionism does not inherently specify anything about the Palestinians. It is predominantly an ideology about the Jewish people, not Palestinians.
