At the instigation of the Wisconsin Green Party, the National Committee of the Green Party of the United States last week endorsed a statement saying that the party “calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual rights of the Palestinian people are realized.”
The resolution, whose text the party released on Nov. 28, also “calls on all civil society and institutions and organizations around the world” and “all governments” to join this effort; urges college/university Greens to work to “achieve institutional participation in this effort”; and “directs the Green Peace Action Committee … to encourage the larger anti-war movement to promote” the effort.
Milwaukeean Ruth Weill is co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. In a telephone interview she said the resolution was drafted by Madison Green activist Ben Manski; and Mohammed Abed, a Wisconsin Green member who is also a member of the Al-Awda Palestinian Right to Return Coalition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the organization behind a continuing effort to get the UW System to divest from companies doing business with or in Israel.
Weill said the state party had approved the resolution in August; and she was one of the presenters of it to the GPUS National Committee for its on-line vote.
When asked why she supports an effort that is regarded as hostile and threatening to Israel by most in the organized Jewish community, Weill said, “As a Jewish person, I feel it is my duty to practice my Judaism and stand up for the Palestinians because of the injustices that they are going through because of the Israeli occupation.”
She said that since the evacuation of Jewish communities from the Gaza Strip this past summer, “we see more and more [Israeli] land grabs in the West Bank” that news media are not reporting. “I feel that drastic measures need to be taken.”
“There’s not going to be any peace until the occupation is over,” Weill said. Moreover, she added, “there are many organizations within the state of Israel, Jewish organizations, that call for divestment.”
Weill said that the vote on the resolution was 55 in favor, seven opposed and ten abstentions, representing “38 states or caucuses” of the Green Party.
During the 2004 national elections, the GPUS at its convention in Milwaukee approved a platform that included support for Palestinian Arab refugees “right of return” to Israel and for “serious consideration” of a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to an article in the March 19-20 Counterpunch Web site, the GPUS at that time had about 290,000 members.
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