A British-Palestinian artist and activist who was behind a Zionism motion passed by the Green Party of England and Wales says she has received death and rape threats since the vote. Lubna Speitan made the claim in an interview on Thursday.
Speitan said she has been sent dozens of threatening messages through social media and email, and she has reported them to the police. She said the threats were expected, and she believes they amount to intimidation by pro-Israel agitators.
Speitan calls threats intimidation and defends the vote
Speitan said that, while no one wants to face death threats, “it is necessary to confront these evils.” The motion passed 1,022 votes to 813 at the party’s conference in Brighton. Almost every other British political party has criticised it, and it has caused turmoil inside the Greens.
Several of the party’s left-wing MPs have also criticised the move. On Thursday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham ruled out partnering with the Greens, calling the motion “wrong” and “anti-Semitic”.
Motion’s definition of Zionism and Speitan’s defence
The motion describes Zionism, the belief that Jews have a historic claim to Palestine, as a form of racism rooted in the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It notes that Palestinians made up more than 90 percent of the population in 1917, when Britain declared support for a Jewish state in the country. It backs Palestinians’ right to self-determination and a single democratic state in historic Palestine for Muslims and Jews, and states that anti-Zionism should not be equated with anti-Semitism.
Speitan said that 56 members of her family have been killed since Israel launched its war on Gaza three years ago. She argued that the motion “targets an ideology: Zionism,” which she described as an ethnonationalist settler-colonial project. She also said she has been personally smeared by media outlets.
Recent British press headlines claimed she was friends with an “al-Qaeda terrorist,” reportedly because she offered to testify in defence of Minh Quang Pham, a UK citizen who had planned an attack at Heathrow Airport. Speitan rejected the reports, saying, “This tactic of guilt by association will not be dignified with a response.”
The Green Party said Speitan holds no party positions “other than being a member.” It said it takes allegations of this nature seriously, has internal processes for members whose views do not fit the party’s values, and that an investigation is under way.
NewsCord review and 1975 UN resolution precedent
Media watchdog NewsCord reviewed coverage of the motion and concluded that opponents of the resolution received ten times more coverage than its supporters.
The Green Party is not the first Western political body to describe Zionism as racism. In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Zionism a racist ideology, with 72 countries in favour, 35 against and 32 abstaining. The resolution was later repealed in 1991.
