Greens Come Out for Anti-Israel Boycott

The Green Party in both the United States and Canada have chosen to make Israel-bashing a plank in their platform, supporting BDS and attacking Israel as an “apartheid” state.

U.S. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is unambiguous about her anti-Israel stance, saying that she wants to end all military aid to Israel. “This would be decisively against our common values, to support apartheid, to support home demolitions, to support occupation, to support violations of international law,” she told Newseek in an interview on Friday.

As the Green Party candidate in 2012, Stein appeared on ballots in 36 states and received 469,000 votes, or 0.36 percent of the ballots cast. Stein ran unsuccessfully for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010.

In Canada, the Green Party voted on Sunday to incorporate the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) in their official policy, but the party reportedly remains divided over the issue.

Its leader, Elizabeth May, told members that she would rather not lead a party that had endorsed BDS, though she did not say anything about resigning.

Former Green party candidate Richard Zurawski called the vote “destructive for the party,” while another member worried it’s not time for the Greens to be “more polarizing.”

“Every country has its issues,” Zurawski said. “When we specifically single out Israelis, I worry about the buzzwords and subtext and code language, which is anti-Semitic.”

In February, the Canadian parliament endorsed a largely bipartisan resolution condemning any groups or individuals supporting BDS.