
PALESTINE campaigners praised the Green Party after its annual conference voted to support a criminal investigation into the British government for “aiding and abetting Israel over the course of [Israel’s] genocide” in Gaza.
Sunday’s motion demanded “a full arms embargo” and an end to “the spy plane flights over Gaza from the British military base in Cyprus.”
An emergency motion rejecting US President Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan was also unanimously passed at the conference in Bournemouth.
It pointed out that the proposals violated the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and instead called for “plans for a permanent ceasefire based in international law.”
Earlier, members passed another motion calling for the Israeli military to be banned as a terrorist organisation and for Britain to apologise for the Balfour Declaration, which pledged support for zionism.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal said: “After almost two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the British government is still aiding and abetting their crimes — arming a genocidal state, feeding them intelligence and welcoming plans that deny the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination.
“If international law means anything, it must mean accountability, not impunity, for the people who have committed or assisted in these atrocities.
“The Green Party is right not just to demand comprehensive sanctions to end Israel’s genocide, including imposing a full arms embargo, but also to hold those responsible to account, as dictated by international law.”
The emergency motion noted that, last Friday, United Nations human rights experts raised “major concerns” about Mr Trump’s plan, saying that it was “inconsistent with the fundamental rules of international law and the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.”
The conference vote came as Israel continue to bomb Gaza, despite Mr Trump having told Israel to stop its attacks, with more than 70 Palestinians killed at the weekend.
In his opening speech to the conference on Friday, Green Party leader Zack Polanski said that the proscription of Palestine Action must be “withdrawn.”
Speaking the day before police made more than 500 arrests at a Defend Our Juries demonstration in Westminster against the ban, Mr Polanski accused the Labour government of carrying out a “draconian crackdown on the right to protest” by outlawing the direct action group and branding it a terrorist organisation.