UK Green member behind anti-Zionism motion ‘receives death threats’

Lubna Speitan, who has Palestinian roots, believes messages and emails are part of an effort to intimidate her.

London, United Kingdom – The British-Palestinian woman behind the Zionism is racism motion, passed by the Green Party of England and Wales earlier this month, says she has received death and rape threats since the vote.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, Green member Lubna Speitan, an artist and activist, said she has received dozens of threatening social media messages and emails, which she has reported to the police.

“These threats were anticipated,” said Speitan, who believes they are a form of “intimidation” from pro-Israel agitators.

While “no one wants to be on the receiving end of death threats”, she said it is “necessary to confront these evils”.

The Greens passed the motion by 1,022 votes to 813 at their party conference in Brighton, but it has been criticised by virtually all other British political parties and has brought turmoil to the Greens.

Several of its left-wing MPs have criticised the move, and on Thursday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham ruled out partnering with the party, calling the motion “wrong” and “anti-Semitic”.

The motion defines Zionism, the belief that Jews have a historic claim to Palestine, as a form of racism, predicated on the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Palestinians made up more than 90 percent of the population in 1917, when Britain declared its support for a Jewish state in the country.

The motion supports Palestinians’ right to self-determination and calls for the establishment of a single democratic state in historic Palestine for Muslims and Jews. It also says that anti-Zionism should not be equated with anti-Semitism.

‘Personally smeared’

Fifty-six members of Speitan’s family have been killed since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza three years ago.

“Zionism is defined clearly as an ethnonationalist settler-colonial project. The motion also recognises, correctly, that not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews,” she said. “It targets an ideology: Zionism.”

She added that she has been “personally smeared” by media outlets.

Recent headlines in the British press have claimed she was “friends” with an “al-Qaeda terrorist”, as she reportedly offered to testify in defence of Minh Quang Pham, a UK citizen who had planned an attack at Heathrow Airport.

Reports have claimed Speitan is being investigated by the Greens, but she said she has not been formally notified.

“This tactic of guilt by association will not be dignified with a response,” Speitan said of the reports.

The Green Party of England and Wales told Al Jazeera that Speitan holds no party positions “other than being a member”.

“The Green Party takes all allegations of this nature seriously. Where members have expressed views that do not fit in with the party’s values, we have internal processes to investigate, and an investigation is under way,” it said.

Media watchdog NewsCord, which reviewed coverage of the motion, concluded that opponents of the resolution received 10 times more coverage than its supporters.

The Green Party is not the first Western political institution to classify Zionism as a form of racism. In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring that Zionism was a racist ideology. Seventy-two countries voted in favour of the motion, while 35 opposed it and 32 abstained. The resolution was later repealed in 1991.