On Sunday, at its annual conference in Brighton, the British Green Party voted to recognise Zionism as racism. The motion, which describes Zionism as “an ethnonationalist political project”, passed with 1,022 votes to 813, despite opposition from several of the party’s MPs as well as former party leader Caroline Lucas.

The vote caused uproar in the British mainstream, with many commentators taking to the airwaves and social media to condemn it, accuse the party of anti-Semitism and even claim it is endangering Jewish people.

list 1 of 1The UK Greens are wrong – Zionism is not racism

Yet, the Green Party’s resolution does not declare anything radical or extraordinary. Zionism was and continues to be a settler-colonial ideology, and settler colonialism is fundamentally racist. Zionism is centred on the belief that Jewish people from anywhere in the world have a right to a homeland in historic Palestine – a right that outweighs any other people’s.

It is a conviction that is based on biblical claims to a land and an ahistorical understanding of history. Crucially, its fulfilment requires the usurping and dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian population.

It should not be particularly controversial to define Zionism as a........

© Al Jazeera