Opening session - Zack Polanski, Green Party @ BDS 20 Conference, London 12/7/25

I suppose I want to start with somewhere where Omar started which he talked about the unbearable grief and just that phrase really just resonated because I think it describes it well and although Omar didn't stay in the unbearable grief he got to a rallying cry that I thought was very powerful. I think it's important to acknowledge powerful feeling, to acknowledge what's going on, and to acknowledge that in history people will say, "What did you do? Where did you stand?" And sometimes being in Westminster Hall or on a Saturday morning can feel not enough. And I don't think it's enough. But what we're doing today is continuing to grow the movement, to organize, to listen, to reflect, and for us all to take responsibility about how this room is pretty busy, but how can we make sure in the future the room is even busier?

When we have actions, how are we going to grow these actions? How can we talk to our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues, talk about the greatest moral litmus test of our time? And for all those people who are being silent right now who know that it's not acceptable will either feel paralyzed with fear to speak out of fear of being smeared or don't speak out because they just think what difference would my voice do? The power that we each have individually in this room to acknowledge the agency and choices we have in this country and variously around the world to speak out on a genocide to call a genocide what it is. And actually one of the most powerful speakers I've heard speak on this was at a PSC rally where I was also speaking.

Now let me acknowledge I've heard other politicians give amazing speeches. I've heard movement leaders give amazing speeches. But actually this speech for me was an unexpected place. was a pop star of Paloma Faith and and Paloma Faith got up there and her speech has really stuck with me and uh you can find it on the internet so I won't repeat her whole speech now but I will paraphrase a minute because I I think it's something we should all carry with us. She just took to the stage and in front of thousands of people she said people have told me by being by speaking out by being at this microphone I might lose sales I might lose business I might damage my reputation but you know what there's a genocide happening in Palestine and innocent children are dying and people will say to me do you really understand politics you know it's quite complicated geopolitical stuff should you be interfering just looks at them and says there's a genocide happening in Palestine and children are dying and other people would try to find ways to distract her to not talk about this but she will always return to the fact that children are dying and so when we think about why are we in this hall it's not just the children who are dying it's people who are dying it's people who are dying at a time where we're in this hall a whole steeped in history that has long rallied for dignity for justice to ask the world to not look away.

But we know far too much of the world right now is looking away. And although every time we turn on our phone screens or we look on the TV, we hear the screams, we hear the cries of dying people, of innocent people whose lives are being massacred, of a country that is being destroyed, of the genocide, of ethnic cleansing, and a war crime that is not just happening with our government's complicity, but our government's active participation. We are selling those arans to Israel. We are sharing intelligence with Israel. And when Israel started an illegal war with Iran, cheered and backed on by Donald Trump and America.

Karma was not out there front and center condemning what was a breach of international law. despite being a human rights worker for much of his career, he was giving implicit coded nods that this was all fine, that Iran at some point was some kind of extreme threat, despite the fact that Tony Brennan, the former uh head of the CIA hardly a friend of the anti-war movement, said that Iran is no nowhere near nuclear weapons and is no imminent threat to anyone. So this is both the global context and the national context we are in in this country right now where we see national politicians particularly from the two old parties shrug their shoulders say of course we want an end to war of course we want a ceasefire but continue to sell arms if this wasn't so disastrous so catastrophic and so destructive it would be laughable because it's so incoherent in its thinking that it doesn't even require a moment to think about it for the full mask to lift off of our country's complicity with these crimes not just since October 7th and the increasing onslaught but decades going back to the bow for declaration and the colonialism neoc colonialism of our attitude towards the threat and the way we have treated this apartite state. So what do we do about it? I really recall a moment about a year ago I was on LBC in a debate.

I was debating uh I almost don't want to say her name because I don't want to make a couple famous but um Annabelle Benham who is the deputy political editor of the Daily Telegraph and we had a fairly kind of rambunctious debate about lots of things and then we got on to the issue of Palestine and she said that the Palestine marches the marches with me and so many people have been marching on with thousands tens of thousands of people who have been marching in peace calling for anti-war calling for a peace movement. She described these marches as hate marches and she said that you can't say this without being called racist. I interrupted and said that's because it's a racist thing to say. She then said she then said next you'll be calling me a bigot. I shrug my shoulders and said you say bigotive things.

And the host, rather than being offended by the racism going on his show, asked me to apologize or to leave. And as I left, I made a point that I have this microphone and I have a responsibility to speak up about what I see. And and while telling this story, I always want to center the lives of the Palestinians and I always want to center speeches like you just heard. I do think it's important though without censoring it to note that I am Jewish. I come from a background where I went to a Jewish school.

I was raised with a Jewish education. But I don't oppose this genocide in spite of my Jewishness. I oppose this genocide because my Jewish. When I grow up, when I learn the history of the Holocaust, when I learn about genocide, I learned that never again was not just for one person or one group of people. When we say never again, that is for everybody and must remain such.

And so finally, I want to come to the question that I posed. What what can we do about this? Now, this will sound odd. I'm a I'm an elected politician. Right now, I'm running to be leader of the Green Party.

But I also know that the change will not come from elected politicians. The change will not solely come from leaders and parties and movements. The change will come from grassroots movements, from people power, because that's the only thing that's ever changed anything. From the suffragettes, from the civil rights movement, from the anti-apartite movement. The change never came from the leaders of movements or people giving great speeches, although that certainly helped.

The change came from the behavior of people, from the behavior of communities, from people's choices. Now, this is counterintuitive to me. I was just having this conversation with Rifa. I don't know where she's gone. And for a long time as a climate activist, I still stick by this.

People often try to stick with you, you know, are you vegan? Do you drive? Do you fly? And by the way, I am vegan. I don't drive and I don't fly.

But that is not the point. They're only asking those questions because they want to shout hypocrite at me. I've long said that you can be an environmentalist and you can be a climate justice activist and do all of these things if you don't have the privilege to do anything else. These kind of purity tests are just ways of dividing us. And ultimately the idea that you have to be perfect in your behavior is uh another barrier that people can create.

However, at the same time, if you do have the choice, if you do have the power, the privilege to be able to make your decisions, then why wouldn't you use your consumer power? Why wouldn't you make it really clear to those organizations and those corporates who are benefiting, who are profiting from war crimes and a genocide that you would not dream of buying their product. and make sure that the local neighborhood and the shop that you go in, make sure that it is clear that that is an anti-apartite zone and encourage them. I was just hearing about the amazing work happening in Bristol where there are whole areas where neighborhood shots are saying very clearly that genocide is not on me. This is the power the power we all have.

And one thing I will say on this is it is working. I was in a media organization just yesterday, a pretty bribe one where I went to do an interview. They offered me a drink. I said, "Could I have a soft drink?" They said, "Do you want Coke?" And then they caught themselves and said, "Of course you won't be drinking Coke, will you?" Now, the next step, and I'm not obviously, the next step is to stop them offering to climb the Coke at all. But the fact this message is even resonating does matter.

And I know sometimes these things can feel so atomized. We can go, what difference does it make what I buy or what goes on in my house? But it really does make a difference because these economic paths, which are effectively economic sanctions against the company, do add up. I wish that these companies cared about the people and the planet, and some companies do, but the majority of these companies are there for one thing. They're there for profit.

So let's hit them with the prophets. Let's make sure that if they won't stand for people like crime, if they won't stand for innocent people, if they won't stand for peace, we will make them stand for the right things. We will engage with the system in the way that we know how to change it. So to wrap up, thank you so much for being here. There is so much power in this movement.

There is so much momentum in this movement. I know when I go knocking on doors, I'm off to Stafford just straight out of his plenary. And I know when I speak to people, they will actively bring up Palestine. Don't let the media pretend that this is some kind of niche thing or only people who carry plaqueards or protest care about it. And by the way, solidarity to everyone who is carrying a plaqueard.

Everyone who is protesting and indeed everyone who is taking action on Palestine deserves our solidarity.

protesting is one way of changing things. But the power of dialogue, the power of boycott, the power of divestment, and the power of sanctions. And the only obvious place to end is to say sometimes things can seem impossible until they are done. And that's how we'll change our towns. It's how we'll change the country.

And it is how together we can change the world. Solidarity. Thank you.