Published: 5 August 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
As a Jewish Greens member, DAN COLEMAN believes the party is still learning how to handle bigotry towards Jews.
Since organising the first Greens Party branch in the American state of North Carolina in 1985, I’ve worked on dozens of Greens electoral and issue campaigns and held a variety of positions in the party, for the past decade here in Australia. Through all those years and activity, I have never met a Greens Party member who was motivated by antisemitism. Not once.
Why, then, is there a widespread perception among Australian Jews, particularly those on the Right, that the Greens Party is antisemitic?
The perception that the Greens are antisemitic is particularly confounding considering the finding of The Jewish Independent’s recent Crossroads21 survey that “the strongest rejection of stereotypical statements about antisemitism was by Greens voters, rather than Coalition or Labor. The average for Greens voters was 90%, with Labor voters 81%, Coalition 80% and minor parties 71%.”
The strong rejection of antisemitism is consistent with the high priority Greens place on fighting discrimination, but it is not the perception of the right-leaning Jewish media and peak bodies, who weaponise charges of antisemitism to attack a party they correctly view as favouring justice for the Palestinians.
This was reflected by former AJN editor Zeddy Lawrence who, in response to a letter citing the strong Greens opposition to antisemitism in Crossroads21 wrote, “The report also shows the Greens are overwhelmingly more supportive of the Palestinians than Israel. I would imagine that accounts for why many see the Greens as antisemitic.”
Greens members, like other Australians, need to be educated.
The equivalence of support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism has been fuelled by a series of damaging missteps by Greens party members.
