GREEN RESOLUTION DRAWS IRE.
OTTAWA • Members of the Green party are deciding whether to add Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel to a list of official party policies.
Party members are also voting on a resolution on revoking charitable status from the Jewish National Fund of Canada, which develops land in Israel.
Both are “outrageous” propositions, says Conservative foreign affairs critic Tony Clement, and the latter is “tremendously hypocritical,” says JNF Canada.
The Green party’s only MP and leader, Elizabeth May, says she is against both resolutions. She explained policy proposals come from the grassroots and are not vetted before being put to members.
Results from an online ballot will become available next week. Proposals are either adopted, rejected or “yellow-lighted,” which would send them to the national convention floor in Ottawa, Aug. 5-7. May said the third option is the most likely.
“I’ll do my very best to be as persuasive as I can possibly be,” she said, but since it’s one member, one vote, there’s only so much she can do to stop the resolutions if they have grassroots support.
May met Friday with Israeli Ambassador Rafael Barak, she said, and explained to him that the Green party was “immovable” in its support for Israel’s right to exist and its condemnation of antiSemitism.
The BDS movement, which seeks economic retaliation against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory through boycotts, divestments and sanctions, has “become a lightning rod for very divisive politics,” May said. The Greens don’t mention it in their current policies.
But May, along with the NDP, disagreed with a parliamentary motion this February condemning the movement, citing concerns about freedom of speech. She said that it’s disturbing to see that even legitimate criticisms of Israeli policy tend to be immediately conflated with anti-Semitism.
The strongly worded motion, condemning the “demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel” and any actions by Canadian groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, passed with 229 to 51, including major support from the governing Liberals.
Clement said the proposed resolutions are “outrageous” and that the Greens shouldn’t play with “identity politics” or get “sucked into taking anti-Israel, anti-Jewish-Canadian stances.”
The JNF Canada resolution is “just bizarre,” he said.
JNF Canada recently launched an email campaign against the Greens, accusing the party of “targeting Israel.”
May admitted the resolution contains “factual errors” and said if it was adopted she would invoke an emergency debate at the August meeting. If the issue is brought to the floor, she said JNF Canada CEO Josh Cooper has a standing invitation to speak or set up a booth.