Zack Polanski. (Image: Instagram)

The traditions of Islam say that the inhabitants of paradise wear green silk accoutrements and relax on green cushions. And the Prophet chose to wear green gowns and a green turban.

Britain’s Green Party was dedicated to saving the planet from global warming and to campaign for an end to fossil fuels. It was named for all those aims and policies — absolutely nothing to do with Islam or Muslims… (What???? And you call yourself a columnist, au fait with the facts? — Ed.)

Oops, sorry, gentle reader: that statement about the Green Party is — or has recently become — manifestly untrue. In 2005, the party elected Zack Polanski as its leader. Under his leadership, its founding aims have steadily eroded. The Greens still talk, of course, about global warming, alternative power sources and green energy, but their focus has shifted towards a different political agenda. Polanski presumably believes the party should pursue broader aims than curbing global warming. He certainly wants more MPs in the House of Commons and, although he has not adopted Malcolm X’s slogan, “by any means necessary”, he has set out to challenge — or, as far as his party can, displace — Labour’s socialist or left-wing position.

The Greens have just held their annual Party conference. The resolutions they passed were national news, and the subject of controversy within the Party and in the media. But no, gentle reader, the talk of the town was not some resolution of the Party to ban diesel cars, to stop the use of gas cookers, to close all factories that still burn fossil fuels… No sirrah, no sirree! The resolution of the Green Party that hit the headlines and caused splits of opinion in the Party itself was the motion, enthusiastically passed by a majority, “Zionism is Racism”!

Zack, himself Jewish, but very far from supporting the present government of Israel, was not present at the vote, as he was conveniently campaigning as a candidate in the forthcoming by-election in London for the vacancy left by Kier Starmer’s parliamentary resignation.

Was it a dodge? Did he want to be seen to abstain from passing this motion?

And what was the motion expected to achieve? Very clearly, it was aimed at the Muslim vote in the forthcoming local elections, in any possible by-election to Westminster and of course in the long term when the country goes to the polls in 2029 — at the latest.

The motion, though wider in scope, is an obvious expression of anti-Netanyahu and his cabinet’s policies, of the Israeli military action leading to devastation in Gaza and of the invasion of new, aggressive Jewish settlers in the West Bank, involving the displacement of Palestinian inhabitants.

Such a stance is a guarantee of the Muslim vote as it makes Green the chosen colour next to which to put their ballot cross.

The resolution caused ructions in the Party. Four of the five MPs the Green Party has have denounced the resolution. Jewish organisations have reacted in no uncertain terms, condemning the Party’s stance — and Israel has banned Zack Polanski from ever entering the country.

If the resolution condemns the atrocities against the innocent citizens of Gaza, it should have said so. If it seeks to condemn the infringement of the rights and habitation of the Palestinians of the West Bank, it should have said so. If it is against the general stance of the Netanyahu government — well what’s to disagree with? But, gentle reader, what one can critically accuse this motion of is intellectual laziness.

Zionism is the nationalism of Israel. Yes, there may be very many Israelis who regard the Palestinians as people of a different and inferior race. This, despite the fact that millions of Jews native to Palestine probably have the same DNA as Palestinians.

Zionism, the conviction that Jews should have a homeland safe from the racism they suffered as a religion from the days of the Roman Empire through the massacres inflicted by the medieval crusaders to

Hitler’s genocide, is an absolutely humane and necessary contention or even conviction. The assertion that they should have a secure homeland doesn’t imply racism against Palestinians, even though the actions of successive vicious governments of Israel have descended into ethnic cleansing, which can certainly be labelled ‘racist’.

The Green Party motion was passed by a majority at their Brighton conference but it now emerges that it was proposed by a British Palestinian member of the Party called Lubna

Speitan, an “artist and activist”. The Times alleges that Lubna is a friend and associate of Minh Quang Pham, a British citizen who was trained in terrorism at an Al Qaeda camp and planned to detonate a bomb in the passenger area of Heathrow airport in London. He was stopped, apprehended and tried and Lubna volunteered to testify on his behalf at the trial.

Despite this taint on the origin of the resolution, the Party has deployed it now to influence the by-election vote on the eighth of October in Camden, in which Zack is a candidate and where 16 per cent of voters identify as Muslim.

Will Green be their anti-Israeli choler?

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