Solidarity with Resignation of Jewish Green Party member and Councillor. Incredibly sad to see you resign @andree_frieze. I really wish you hadn't given way to others when you wanted to speak. I wish they had given way to you. I've only read Caroline's speech but yours would have been much more powerful and one thing is for sure, the authoritarians weren't going to be told what to think no matter how senior the person telling them. But your story is much more powerful. I'm going to reproduce below too: andreefrieze.substack.com/p/… Words of Andree Frieze: "The Green Party is now antisemitic and supports terrorism Yesterday, Green Party conference passed the Zionism is Racism motion proposed by Greens4Palestine. A relatively new, extremely well-organised non-affiliated group within the Green Party. If you’re wondering how they managed such a meteoric rise to victory, you’re not alone, and although I’m not a conspiracy theorist, this initial probing could do with further digging. I had planned to speak against the motion, but after consulting colleagues it seemed wisest that I didn’t as the abuse I might receive could outweigh any possible benefit. Plus, there were bigger name speakers lined up to speak out, who should take precedence. So I gave way to Caroline Lucas, Femi Oluwole and Ellie Chowns. If I had spoken, this is the speech I would have given. “My parents-in-law, now in their 80s, were eight or nine when racism expelled them from the only country they had called home. They left in the clothes they were standing in, with only a suitcase. Homes, jobs, communities, left behind. Destroyed in a moment. For the next eight years they lived in refugee camps, until homes were built to move into them. They were just two small children, but part of the 150,000-strong Jewish community in Iraq that existed until the 1950s, from the sixth century BCE. Some 850,000 Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the Middle East after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq declared war on the new country of Israel in 1948. Banished because of racism, because the Arab nations didn’t want an independent Jewish nation on their borders. Israel was created in the wake of the killing of more than 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. And, what about the 750,000 Palestinians that fled, told to leave by the invading armies, or evicted as the Jews fought back? Were they given homes in the Middle Eastern countries which had just got rid of the hundreds of thousands of Jews in their cities and towns? No. Why not? Racism. Those nations didn’t want Palestinians in their lands either. Their hatred of Jews kept Palestinians as endless refugees. Conference you are being asked to say that Zionism is Racism. This is a distortion of history and Arab and Western racism against the Jews. If you vote for this motion [unamended], you are saying that the whole of the Jewish people – the 15.8 million people, still short of the 16.6 million before the Holocaust – are racist and responsible for the desperate situation the Palestinians are in. If you believe this is simply due to Zionism, then vote for this motion. But if you think that the Western and the Arab nations might just have had a hand in causing the Palestinians’ plight then you have to vote against this motion.” I have been saying for the last 10 months, since the Zionism is Racism motion was first put out, that I would resign if it passed. I will, but it’s proving harder than I thought. Stepping into the Green Party in 2012 felt like coming home. Stepping away from 14 years of membership, 12 years of campaigning, 8 years of being a councillor and countless friendships is, unsurprisingly, proving hard. Nonetheless, I cannot stay in a party that demands the destruction of Israel, denies Jewish self-definition, and deems me racist."