Scotland’s Green Party has called for a boycott of Israel, calling it an apartheid state and expressing support for Hamas.
In a motion passed at the Scottish Greens conference in Glasgow on Saturday, members called for Hamas to be removed from an European Union list of proscribed terror groups.
It also called from the non-profit Jewish National Fund to be removed from the charity register – accusing it of “excluding non-Jews from Israeli land”.
The party urged a full-scale boycott of Israeli businesses, academic and cultural institutions.
It went onto denounce eco-friendly groups in Israel, adding: “We oppose Green Zionism, the ideology of Green parties in Israel, which is an attempt to fuse Green values with Zionism”.
The controversial motion appeared to endorse Hamas, which is committed to the “obliteration” of Israel and talks of the “struggle against the Jews”.
The Greens confirmed they would not support Israel in its current form. The motion stated: "Israel's claim to be a Jewish and democratic state, the home of all Jews in which non-Jews have inferior rights constitutes apartheid and is unacceptable. It is not supported by the Scottish Green Party.”
The motion also demanded that Israel set free “political prisoners”; withdraw its territory to pre-1967 borders; to surrender territories captured in the Six Day War; and bring an end to West Bank settlements, which have been widely deemed a breach of international law.
It described the West Bank security barrier as constituting “a policy of apartheid”.
It also called from a Palestinian right of return to be passed, while calling for Israel’s law of return, extended to diaspora Jews, to be repealed.
Earlier this year, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett called for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions.
She said: We need to get the message across to the Israeli state. It needs to comply with international law and human rights.
“The boycott of Israel is Green Party policy.”
