Israel condemns UK Green Party resolution calling Zionism racism

Israel has reacted angrily after the United Kingdom's Green Party voted to officially describe Zionism as a form of racism. The response came on Sunday from both the Israeli government and British Jewish organisations, with Israeli officials claiming the party was now granting legitimacy to terrorism.

The Green Party, which won 6 percent of the vote in the UK's 2024 general election, characterised Zionism as an ethnonationalist political project and renewed its demand for the British Labour government to halt all arms sales to Israel.

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the resolution exceeded the limits of acceptable political discourse and urged other UK political parties to publicly reject it. The ministry accused the Greens of aligning themselves with Hamas's ideology, suggesting the party had embraced the goal of destroying the State of Israel through violence.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the decision as shameful, arguing that associating Zionism with racism amounted to an antisemitic falsehood that put Jewish and Israeli people at risk worldwide. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said it was the Green Party itself, rather than Zionism, that represented racism.

The Movement for Progressive Judaism, a British organisation, said the Green Party had effectively made antisemitism part of its official policy and had become a racist party as a result.