UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Thursday that the Green Party’s decision to pass a motion declaring “Zionism is racism” was “completely wrong” as polls closed in a by-election in which its leader, Zack Polanski, is seeking a seat in the House of Commons.
Speaking to journalists during a trip to Berlin, Burnham described the motion as showing “terrible judgement on behalf of the Green Party” and said it “shouldn’t be supported in any way, shape or form.”
He called on Polanski “to say that it will be reversed and it won’t be Green Party policy.”
“In my view, all political parties in the UK should do everything they can to support the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine,” he said.
The Green Party passed the motion at its conference Sunday, defining Zionism as “a political ideology which called for the creation – and, now it exists, the continuity – of an ethnonationalist Jewish State in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population.”
The motion describes Zionism as a racist ideology and backs a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine with equal rights for all.
Polanski is contesting the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, which was called after former Prime Minister Keir Starmer quit as an MP following his move out of Downing Street.
Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, a local council leader, is seeking to retain the constituency, which has only ever been represented by Labour.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused the party of legitimizing armed resistance against Israel and denying Jewish self-determination, saying the policy amounted to antisemitism under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition.
Earlier, the ministry accused the Greens of having become “supporters of terrorism” and called on British political parties, including the governing Labour Party, to reject the motion.
The Green Party rejected any equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, describing Zionism as an ethnonationalist political project.
The party has also reaffirmed its support for Palestinian self-determination, the right of return and a full arms embargo on Israel.
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