Greens vote to reject BDS movement
Resolution yet to be ratified by party members
The Green Party of Canada has updated its policy book to reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but maintain support for some of its practices within a broader policy.
At a special convention in Calgary this past weekend, about 350 party members voted in an update to its Israel-Palestine policy that supports nonviolent, economic methods of protest but reinforces support for the state of Israel itself.
The resolution, supported by leader Elizabeth May, needs to be ratified by an online vote open to party members for two months.
In an announcement Sunday, the party said it “explicitly rejects the notion of boycotting the state of Israel,” and rejects “the goals of the ‘BDS movement’ as they do not include supporting the right of the state of Israel to exist.”
“Many well-meaning Canadians support this movement, but on examination of its goals, it is clear that they are incompatible with Green Party policy,” a statement on the party’s website says.
“The BDS movement, in some ways, I think for progressives, it may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” May said Monday.
“It looks like another version of pursuing social justice, and you don’t understand why it’s so dangerous until you dig in deep. … It was not something that was properly debated in August.”
This weekend’s resolution was nonetheless supported by its predecessor’s sponsor, Dimitri Lascaris, who was ousted as the Green justice critic in September amid controversy following the August convention.
The addendum to the party’s broader Middle East policy denounces violence and “supports only nonviolent responses to violence and oppression, including economic measures such as government sanctions, consumer boycotts, institutional divestment, economic sanctions and arms embargoes.”
The Green policy clarifies exactly what kinds of economic pressure it would want to exert in protesting settlements outside Israeli borders.
For example, it suggests banning the import of products produced within or by “illegal Israeli settlements.” It also suggests Canada terminate “all military and surveillance trade and cooperation” with “the state of Israel, Israeli corporations or residents of Israel’s illegal settlements.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs takes exception to the Green policy, noting it supports some of the same economic tactics that the BDS movement does. In a statement, the centre accused the Greens of being “co-opted by extreme activists.”
“Elizabeth May and the party’s leadership have turned their backs on the mainstream Jewish community, including the many Jewish Greens who no longer feel welcome,” the centre said.
The party also passed two emergency resolutions on the weekend: one calling on the government to reverse its green-lighting of the Trans Mountain pipeline; another choosing mixed-member proportional representation as a preferred voting system and signalling openness to referenda under certain conditions.