The Palestine Solidarity Campaign director praised Zack Polanski’s leadership
Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s director Ben Jamal has said that the Green Party is ‘setting an example’ for how political parties should be responding to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Jamal made the comments in an interview with Left Foot Forward at this year’s Green Party conference in Bournemouth.
Asked what Jamal thought about the Green Party’s position and campaigning on Palestine, he told Left Foot Forward: “I think they have stood up strong, we are particularly – I have to say – impressed by the leadership of Zack Polanski on this issue. And that includes what he’s been saying in the past few days in relation to the attempts to link the horrific incidents in Manchester with people protesting for Palestinian rights, and he’s been one of the voices across political leadership who’s been able to stand up and say that’s atrocious.”
Jamal later went on to say: “In relation to the Green Party, I think they are setting an example at the moment on how other parties should be responding”.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jamal discussed Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s position on Donald Trump’s plan for the future of Gaza – a plan backed by the UK government. He told Left Foot Forward that plan “does not represent a path to peace through justice.”
Jamal added: “Most Palestinians are desperate for a ceasefire. But what they are also desiring in the 78th year of their struggle for liberation is a peace that is founded on the recognition of their fundamental rights to self-determination, to return, not to exist anywhere on their historic homeland as second-class citizens. And that’s not what Donald Trump’s plan represents – that represents a plan that ignores those rights, that does not deal with the causes of what’s happened.”
He then went on to say: “We’re now in a moment I think where a plan that might secure a ceasefire – which would be welcomed and allow aid into Gaza which is absolutely crucial because there are hundreds of thousands of people facing death from famine. But if it is founded on an attempt to try to normalise Israel’s continued attempt to normalise Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people it will not resolve anything.”
Trump’s plan for Gaza isn’t the only recent development in international positions on Palestine. The UK, France, Portugal and other nations which have historically refused to recognise a Palestinian state have now done so.
Jamal was clear when speaking to Left Foot Forward that this recognition is insufficient given the other positions held by the UK government with regards to Palestine.
He told Left Foot Forward: “It is solely a symbolic and meaningless gesture if it is not actually designed to be a step towards supporting the Palestinians’ realisation of their right to self-determination. But that means it’s accompanied by a commitment to address all of the obstacles to the realisation of that right, which is Israel’s ongoing occupation and system of Apartheid. So unless you’re saying we are going to take action to end all of that so the Palestinian people can exercise their right to self-determination, then it’s meaningless.
“And the second part of that – there’s still a degree of conditionality in how Britain has recognised it. In other words, if people have a right to self-determination that includes the right to choose who will be their leaders. Now, the grounds on which Britain has recognised [Palestine] is Hamas will play no part in the leadership of Palestine. That’s for the Palestinian people to determine. Now if the Palestinian people elect leaders who then undertake actions that are in violation of international law, then there are ways in which states respond to that – they sanction them, they don’t have normal relations with them. But you don’t go round saying well actually what we’re saying is you’ve got to choose completely different leaders – it’s up to the people to chose who leads them.”
One of the controversies bubbling away underneath the surface of this year’s Green Party Conference has been the question of whether a group called Standing Together should have been allowed a stall and a fringe meeting at the event. Standing Together describes itself as “A progressive grassroots movement organizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the occupation and for peace, equality, and social justice”, and has ‘Friends Of’ branches across the world – including in the UK – which support its work.
Ultimately, the group had neither stall nor fringe at the conference, but the prospect of them having a presence has generated significant debate within the party. One camp argues they are a crucial component of the internal opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its actions in Gaza, the other that they are an outfit which seeks to normalise Israel and as the BDS movement has called for them to be boycotted, the Green Party should respect these calls.
Jamal is with the latter camp. He told Left Foot Forward: “When the BDS movement talks about normalisation, what it is talking about is what is the basis on which Palestinian and Israeli organisations ought to work together? And basically, the BDS movement is very happy – and its crucial actually – that there are Israeli organisations who are pushing fully for Palestinian rights within Israel, and the BDS movement looks to work with those and encourage external actors to work alongside those, but it’s on the basis of what is described as co-resistance, not co-existence.
“Now what that means is any organisation that is truly to be committed to the struggle for Palestinian rights – any Israeli organisation – has to accept the full panoply of those rights. So it has to accept the Palestinian right of return; the Palestinian to self-determination, which means the end to the occupation; and the right of all Palestinians not to live as unequal, which means dismantling the system of Apartheid that exists within the state of Israel itself. Standing Together has failed to acknowledge all of those rights.
“So that’s why – despite its opposition to the Netanyahu government, despite some of the actions its taken in opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza – it still does not accept the full panoply of Palestinian rights, and until it does it’s not an organisation that people should work with.”
However, when pressed on whether he could foresee a time in which Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others could work with Standing Together if it moved towards positions that were closer to those held by the BDS movement, Jamal told Left Foot Forward “It needs to complete that journey, if it is indeed on a journey”, going on to add: “A key question for me is you’ve heard what the leadership of the BDS movement which represents the broadest segment of Palestinian civil society have said about why they won’t work with that – why are you not responding to that, why are you not shifting? If you are saying that we think they’re wrong and we know better, what does that say about your recognition of the fact that a people should determine the parameters of their own liberation? And this is a widespread body of opinion across Palestinian society, so why are you not listening to them? That would be the question I’d put to them.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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