By Donald H. Harrison

After the Green party adopted a resolution last November calling for an international boycott of Israeli businesses until the Middle East dispute is resolved in favor of the Palestinians, many Jewish organizations yawned.  The response, when there was one, seemed to go like this: "The Green party?  The Ralph Nader bunch?  Who really cares what they think?  They're such a small little group way out there on the left somewhere."

Gary Acheatel, a Morgan Stanley senior vice president with offices in Del Mar, California, and Ashland, Oregon, was not among the yawners.  He was so galvanized by Resolution 190 of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) that he promptly dropped his Democratic party affiliation and joined the Greens.  This was not because he liked what the party had to say, but for precisely the opposite reason.  He was offended and felt the best way to change the party's course was to become a member, and then start militating for a reversal from within.

The  resolution was adopted by the Green party's national committee last Nov. 21 by an e-mail vote of the party's delegates:  There were 126 delegates eligible to vote, but of those, only 72 participated.  The    resolution received 55 affirmative votes, 7 negative votes, and 10     
Gary Acheatel                                          abstentions.  Here is the text of the resolution:
{Photograph © Stuart Gray}
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1. The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) publicly calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized. 

To maximize the effect of the Green Party's support for divestment and boycott of Israel:

2. The party calls on all civil society institutions and organizations around the world to implement a comprehensive divestment and boycott program. Further, the party calls on all governments to support this program and to implement state level boycotts.

3. The party urges the Campus Greens network to work in cooperation with other campus organizations to achieve institutional participation in this effort.

4. The GPUS National Committee directs the Green Peace Action Committee (GPAX) to encourage the larger anti-war movement to promote the divestment/boycott effort.

5. The GPUS National Committee directs the International Committee to work with our sister Green parties around the world in implementing an international boycott.

The electronic vote was held at the behest of the Wisconsin State chapter, in which Mohammed K. Abed and Ruth Weill are leaders.  A news release announcing the Green party's decision read as follows:

"Israel's treatment of Palestinians -- those who are Israeli citizens as well as those in the territories -- is comparable in many ways to South African apartheid, and has resulted in a cycle of violence and lack of security for both Israelis and Palestinians," said Mohammed Abed, a member of the Green Party of Wisconsin.  "A stable and just resolution of the conflict requires the full realization of the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis."

Greens allege that the 'peace process' will ensure neither peace nor human rights, and have called the Gaza Disengagement Plan a smokescreen to buy time and accumulate political capital for the Sharon government while it pursues a plan to force Palestinians into disconnected reservations on less than half the West Bank.

The Green Party is already on record as supporting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to receive compensation for their losses; immediate Israeli withdrawal from all lands acquired since 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem; maintenance of Jerusalem as a shared city open to people of all faiths; suspension of U.S. military and foreign aid to Israel; complete dismantling of the Israeli separation wall; and serious consideration of a single secular, democratic state as the national home of both Israelis and Palestinians. Greens have affirmed the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis.

"The Green Party is on the side of the many Israeli and Palestinian organizations working together to achieve a just resolution through nonviolent means," said Ruth Weill, co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. "As proven in South Africa in the 1980s, divestment and boycott are an effective means to achieve justice for the oppressed."

Greens note that direct U.S. aid to Israel has been conservatively estimated at nearly $105 billion since 1949, which does not include recently proposed assistance such as the $1.2 billion package for developing the Negev and Galilee.

"American taxpayers' money is subsidizing Israel's treatment of its Palestinian citizens and of Palestinians in the occupied territories," said Peter LaVenia, chair of the Albany, New York Greens.

Acheatel created an organization called Advocates for Israel to plead that country's cause among the American citizenry. He explained to jewishsightseeing.com that whereas AIPAC works with the political leadership of the United States, another organization was needed at the grassroots level to meet the challenge of anti-Israel propaganda coming from both the right and the left.

He said even though the Green party is small, with its election successes only at the local governmental level, failing to challenge that party's call for a boycott against Israel is similar to ignoring a cancer just because it is small.  If left to grow on its own, he said, such a cancer can become life threatening.

Accordingly, Acheatel began what he describes as a two-prong strategy to seek the repeal of Resolution 190 and its replacement by a more even-handed policy.  One prong was to put pressure on the Green Party from the outside.  The other was to persuade party insiders that the resolution will not help, but rather  hurt, the Green Party as it attempts to influence the public on the environmental issues it holds dear.

Using the Advocates for Israel website, Acheatel and allies immediately began circulating a petition urging the Green Party to reverse course on Israel. To date about 7,000 have signed the petition, he said.  Here is the text of that petition:

"As with any conflict, the Israel-Arab conflict requires bilateral peace negotiations and joint agreements in order for a real and lasting peace to be achieved. Divestment is an aggressively coercive tool that is counterproductive due to the presumption that only one party (Israel) is to blame for the conflict.

"The issues behind the conflict are complex; and all require negotiation with an honest peace partner. Reducing the conflict to a simplistic accusation against one side only serves to confuse people and demonize one side in the conflict. It is absurd to expect one side to concede critical issues prior to negotiations; yet that is what divestment demands.

"The Green Party’s entry into this realm of international conflict resolution is at variance with its own stated mission. By specifically punishing Israeli businesses, divestment in effect condones the PLO’s use of violence to bring about political change. More in keeping with the Green Party’s mission would be support for a peacefully negotiated settlement without preconditions and after the cessation of terrorist activities.

"We, the undersigned, call upon The Green Party to replace their resolution against Israel with one that advocates the cessation of terror and the resumption of peaceful negotiations."

Another tactic that Acheatel hopes Israel supporters will utilize will be to contact every Green party candidate in the United States, regardless of what office they are running for, to express opposition to  Resolution 190 and to ask them to support that repeal. On the Green party website, there is a state-by- state list of the Green parties.

Meanwhile, Acheatel and others within the Green party are attempting to find a Green party organization to sponsor another round of e-mail balloting by Green party delegates on the Israel divestment question. Acheatel himself plans to talk next Saturday with members of the Green party leadership in Oregon and there are organizing efforts also underway in California and New York, and even in Wisconsin.

Some candidates of the Green Party have publicly disassociated themselves with Resolution 190, among them Markay Rogers, Green candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, and Stanley Aronowitz, a former New York gubernatorial candidate.  Their letter to National Committee members read:

The adoption of resolution 190, calling for a boycott and other actions against Israel, is creating a huge stir nationwide amongst greens and nongreens as well as numerous progressive groups, Jewish organizations and the media.

The credibility of the US Green Party has been badly damaged; resignations from the party are occurring and letters are coming in to the Media Committee expressing anger and disappointment with the party. We will continue to lose prospective members and we need to take these criticisms seriously.

One of our main concerns is the fact that Green Party candidates will be running for public office next fall and will be put in a difficult position: whether to defend this resolution or publicly repudiate their party's policy. Their opponents as well as the media will find every opportunity to put green candidates on the spot and embarrass them. Our candidates cannot afford to have such adverse exposure. They need to get their message out, without diversion, on the more important concerns of their constituents. This resolution could easily  smother their message and damage their campaign.

We believe that the NC needs to revisit and review this resolution quickly in order to minimize the damage and halt the backlash against the party. One important action - one that should have been taken before this resolution was approved - would be to contact the Israel Green Party for their views and recommendations, as well as Palestinian and Israeli peace activists.

We urge the NC to open a broad discussion of the present and potential impact of this resolution on the party and its candidates, and to review the substance of the resolution which, on the face of it, violates our Ten Key Values by failing to condemn violence on both sides, and by failing to observe the principle of Grassroots Democracy when it approved the resolution without a broad discussion within the state parties and without soliciting dissenting views.

We would welcome a role in this dialogue as well as in formulating a new policy that truly reflects our principles of Nonviolence and Grassroots Democracy.

Another speaking out was Lorna Salzman, a member of the New York Green Party Committee, and an unsuccessful aspirant in 2004 for the party's presidential nomination.  Her letter read:

The Wisconsin Green Party's revoltingly ignorant, pointless, and PC resolution on Israel divestment indicates that the Nonviolence pillar has been knocked down for political expedience.

The hypocrisy of condemning Israel while turning a blind eye to Palestinian suicide bombings has not escaped those of us who do not believe in a double standard of morality.

What gives you the right or the expertise to put YOUR opinions and "solutions" ahead of those proposed by Israel and Palestine? This is their responsibility, not yours.

You have shamelessly swallowed the prejudices and political agendas of those who see only one side of this problem.

Shame on Manski, Abed and all of you. You have destroyed the US Green Party's credibility in a moment.

Manski, mentioned in the last paragraph of the letter, is Ben Manski of Wisconsin.

An alternative resolution has been drafted for national Green party consideration, a resolution that Acheatel hopes can be voted upon electronically at the same time as the repeal of Proposition 190 is considered.  He expressed the hope that the repeal can be voted upon before the Green party holds a convention in Tucson, Arizona, in July.