Israel has banned Zack Polanski from entering the country after Green Party members voted to define Zionism as racist.
The party was accused by Israel of giving ‘legitimacy to terrorism’ after a majority on Sunday agreed with the motion to formally adopt a position against Zionism at the party’s conference in Brighton.
Israel’s foreign ministry described the move as a ‘stain’ on Britain’s history and barred Mr Polanski from visiting the nation.
In an update today it said: ‘As a first step, foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has decided this evening to declare Green Party leader Zack Polanski barred from entering Israel.’
During the party conference they also rejected a clause that would have prevented the motion being used to ‘pressure, proscribe or discipline’ party members for their affiliation to Zionist synagogues or other Jewish groups.
The ‘twisted’ resolution to oppose a Jewish state and support the establishment of a Palestinian one has already caused a rift within the party.
Leader Zack Polanski, who was not present at the vote, snubbed the outcome and the Greens’ five MPs issued a statement disowning the party’s new stance.
Its former leaders also expressed their shock that the Greens had become the UK’s ‘first openly anti-Semitic party’.
In an earlier condemnation of the vote, Israel’s foreign ministry said: ‘The Green Party in Britain ceased to act as a political party and became a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism.
‘The Greens have adopted not only the green of Hamas, but also its ideology – the elimination of the State of Israel through armed struggle.
‘This goes far beyond the boundaries of legitimate political debate. As long as this resolution remains in place, it will stand as a stain on the history of the UK.
‘Every political party in Britain, first and foremost the governing Labour Party, must unequivocally reject this twisted resolution.’
In a statement with Green MPs and his deputies, Mr Polanski said there is ‘no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people’.
Former Greens co-leader Carla Denyer last night said the resolution risked ‘alienating a significant proportion of Jewish people’, including those who ‘vehemently disagree’ with Israel.
Her co-leader, Adrian Ramsay, and Caroline Lucas, the party’s first MP, also voiced opposition.
And ex-deputy leader Shahrar Ali told the Daily Mail: ‘I am deeply ashamed. Making Zionism is Racism our official party policy has made us the first openly anti-Semitic party in the UK.’
The motion, revealed by the Daily Mail, declares that the party is ‘opposed’ to Zionism – a movement supporting a Jewish state in Israel.
And it effectively calls for Israel to be replaced by a ‘single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital’.
It passed after 1,022 voted in favour, with 813 voting against.
Mr Polanski instead spent Sunday campaigning in Holborn and St Pancras ahead of Thursday’s by-election.
One Jewish Green member said many may now quit the party. It comes after a ‘safe room’ was set up for Jewish Greens in Brighton.
The Daily Mail can also reveal two members had their passes revoked – a Zionist after silently protesting in a Palestine fringe meeting, and the other, a Jewish Green, for filming it.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘One look beneath the surface of Zack Polanski’s Green Party shows a party toxic to its core.’
And Labour chairman Bridget Phillipson said the policy was ‘shameful’.
There are suggestions the motion could breach the Equality Act, with Adam Wagner KC writing on LinkedIn last night that it may ‘discriminate against’ Jews.
Campaign Against Antisemitism claimed the policy was ‘racism in its clearest form’.
And Luciana Berger, who quit Labour in 2019 after stating it was ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’ under Jeremy Corbyn, said the Greens ‘should be shunned’.
A Green Party spokesman said it opposes ‘racism in all its forms’.
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