Palestine | Sheffield Green Party

Your most important consideration in choosing who to vote for at the local elections is to find someone who will work hard for your community. All the Green Party Candidates are passionate about their local area and ready to work, support, and stand up for their community.

Green Party activists at the silent march for Palestinian Prisoners, on Saturday, April 18th 2026. Prisoners now face the death penalty.

International politics is also relevant in these elections. Decisions made by local councils have a cumulative effect on events across the country and the planet. Sheffield Greens speak up for the rights of Palestinians and all people struggling against terror and oppression. We are the only party to consistently call for freedom for Palestine and an end to the Israeli occupation.

Many Sheffield residents have relatives in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran and are heartbroken by the situation in their home countries. The Council banks with Barclays, who are deeply involved in financing the companies exporting weapons to Israel to carry out atrocities. Some of these weapons are partly manufactured here in Sheffield, and South Yorkshire Pensions Authority has investments in fossil fuels, weapons manufacturing and companies profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestine. (e.g. Airbnb, booking.com)

Sheffield Green Party have consistently spoken up for the rights of the Palestinian people and condemned Israel’s devastation of Gaza and beyond. Unlike other political parties, which have been complicit in the genocide in Gaza, the Green Party has consistently called for freedom for Palestine and for an end to the Israeli occupation and system of apartheid.

Sheffield Greens are the only party on the Council who have

*Voted to condemn the UK Government for its role in the genocide

*Voted for Sheffield to declare an Apartheid Free Zone

*Joined the Sheffield Palestine Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

*Voted for the divestment of the Local Government Pension Scheme from companies supporting Israeli crimes

*Continued support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement

*Voted to condemn the proscription of Palestine Action and for the Government to lift the ban on this organisation.

While other political parties are complicit in their silence, Sheffield Greens have always stood up for human rights, international law, and the victims of genocide. Make your voice heard. Vote Green on 7th May.

The text of this leaflet is available in various languages here.

10 years in the making – Greens welcome new policy on “ethical” spending.

Green councillors on the committee that approved a new “ethical procurement” policy have welcomed the move.

The new policy is to ensure that money the council spends, on behalf of the people of Sheffield, is spent with the right businesses and not those that profit from global atrocities.

The policy will apply to companies that want to receive public money by doing business with the council. One example where the policy may apply, in future, is the Council’s bank, Barclays, that has received criticism for its support for Israel’s illegal activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Cllr Marieanne Elliot, who sat on the Finance and Performance Committee on 25th February, asked whether the “revised policy is now capable of dealing effectively” with the “discretionary exclusion of companies profiting from unlawful occupation of territory and violation of international humanitarian law.”

The Council’s Head of Procurement answered, “it is.”

10-year learning journey

Cllr Douglas Johnson offered his genuine thanks to officers and councillors for the learning journey in this process, noting that he had first started asking questions about this 10 years ago, when he had first met campaigners at a committee meeting in November 2016. He said,

“Although we often say the council has no money, it actually spends a lot each year on behalf of the people of Sheffield. There has been genuine concern that money is spent on the right things – for instance, spending in local businesses is really helpful to the city. We also have duties not to spend on the wrong things and this policy allows us to look at companies’ conduct in this country and all over the world.

“Sheffield is an international city with links all over the world. We have communities that originate from many countries. We have a global perspective and recognise the impact of our actions beyond our national borders. Our diverse communities with family links in many countries help inform our knowledge of injustices around the world. It would be remiss of us if we did not use these powers. The impact on different communities is felt in a disproportionate way.

“I am really pleased the council has addressed the duties under the Equality Act, not just the Procurement Act. It is essential to comply with both.

“There are few examples from other authorities that have grappled with this issue on behalf of their communities. I would like to think this sets an example where Sheffield can lead the way on responsible use of public money so that it does not inadvertently support genocide, atrocities and other war crimes around the globe.”

Notes to editors

The report and adopted ethical procurement policy can be found at https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=9663#AI40912
Green Councillors Martin Phipps and Peter Gilbert also took part in the working group on the ethical procurement policy.
The government operates a “debarment list” of banned companies but the list is still blank: no business has yet been excluded. The list is at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68595a94eaa6f6419fade63b/Debarment_List.pdf
Campaigners at the 2016 meeting were: Annie O’Gara (on behalf of the Sheffield Stop G4S and Palestine Solidarity Campaign), Val Johnson, Hilary Smith, Catherine Gaze, John Grayson (on behalf of the South Yorkshire Migration Action Group (SYMAAG)) and Flis Callow.
Sheffield’s Ethical Procurement Policy includes:

“the Council will proportionately deploy its resources to scrutinise the activities of its potential suppliers, persons who are closely connected with them (as defined) and their supply chains, to assess whether they have been implicated in excludable professional misconduct, including misconduct that contravenes such international commitments, or have been convicted of excludable offences in the UK or in another country. Such misconduct might include, for example, directly contributing to or profiting from unlawful armed conflict, facilitated through their trading activities the unlawful occupation and exploitation of contested territory or systematically engaging in violations of international humanitarian law (including modern slavery) for profit.

Suppliers that either directly or through intermediaries in their supply chains engage in trading activities in places where competent international organisations, (i.e. the UN, the ICC and others) have identified a high probability that excludable misconduct has occurred will be actively scrutinised for their complicity or support in such behaviour. The examination of instances will be conducted with due diligence on a case-by-case basis and is expected to include the review of supplier disclosures, consulting government debarment lists, examining publicly available evidence, validated publicly disclosed evidence, and considering relevant national and international legal instruments. We will then consider whether there may be a ground for exclusion for labour market misconduct, environmental misconduct or professional misconduct.

This approach supports the Council’s policy that public funds under its control should be applied lawfully through contract arrangements with suppliers, whose trading activities (including through all their supply chains) reflect its values and which are undertaken with integrity.”

Cllr Alexi Dimond supported the student encampment as the University took them to court.

Here is his speech.

So right now in Palestine, the ultimate crime of genocide is being committed with weapons supplied by arms companies with which the University of Sheffield has significant relations, holding multi-million pound contracts for research and development.

And for the last two and a half months brave students have camped on their campus, seeking to raise awareness of their University’s ties to the arms industry, and have requested a meeting with them todiscuss the University’s level of complicity with genocide, apartheid and deadly oppression, and what the University will do to end this.

But rather than meet their own students, the University seeks to use the legal system to evict them from their own campus in order to avoid scrutiny.

In the shadow of the Holocaust, UK’s lawyers had a substantial role in writing the Geneva Convention and setting up international courts with the supposed intention of preventing further genocides.

You might imagine that brave students would have the backing of the legal system, but not so.

The legal system is being used to target those who are trying to end an unfolding genocide.

We live in a sick society where most, if not all, of the institutions we are told are the pillars of a so-called civilized and mature democracy.

The courts, the state, national and local government, pensions, universities, businesses, the media, are facilitating a genocide in Palestine. Many of these same institutions are also being instrumentalized to silence or crush those who try to prevent or expose crimes against humanity, and more widely, the destruction of the entire natural world.

In the future, the brave and dedicated students of the encampment and all protesting around the world against the genocide in Palestine will be commemorated alongside those who struggle for causes such as an end to the Vietnam War, for civil rights in the US, for the end of apartheid in South Africa, for an end to fossil fuel extraction, for the repeal of Section 28.

Future generations will wonder why it was largely left to young people to oppose the brutal and racist murder of men, women and children.

Meanwhile, those who supported this genocide and tried to silence those trying to stop it will be condemned, whether they face justice or not.

It is not too late for those who govern the university to change course. Discover your moral compass, discover your humanity, feel compassion for the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of victims of Israel’s current genocide and their families, some of whom attend your university.

I say to the university, meet with your students, hear their demands, and discuss possible resolutions. The university should be proud to have such principled students and can certainly learn a lot from them.

Find out more about the attempted eviction of the camp here.

Poster for the Sheffield Anti-Apartheid movement, supporting freedom in Southern Africa (Sheffield City Archives)

In the 1980s, following a campaign by Sheffield leaders and anti-apartheid activists, Sheffield became the first council in the country to pledge that it would end all links with apartheid South Africa. The council stopped its pension funds investing in companies linked to apartheid and barred South African sports teams from using its playing fields. Boycotts, divestment and sanctions were one of the most effective ways to apply pressure, and Sheffield led the way.

There have been 75 years of policies implemented by the Israeli state designed to discriminate against Palestinian people and force them from their homes. For the last 16 years, Gaza has been under illegal blockade, which preceded the Hamas atrocity of October 7th and the current genocidal campaign by the Israeli state. In the past few months over 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza – 11,000 of them children.

People may feel powerless in the face of this, but we are not. Now is the time for Sheffield City Council to show leadership once more. In November, Sheffield Council resolved to note that “Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’tselem and the South African government recognise that the Israeli Government is enacting a system of apartheid”. We now need to declare our city an Israeli Apartheid-free zone.

Our city must cut ties with all companies that contribute to the genocide of the Palestinian people and apartheid system. This action will show solidarity with the ordinary Israelis and Palestinians who are trying to find a political solution. It will add to the pressure on extremists in the Israeli government and grow the chances of hope and peace.

To support the call for Sheffield Council to boycott and divest from Israeli apartheid, please sign the petition

Alexi Dimond
Sheffield City Councillor for Gleadless Valley

Alexi Dimond addresses the Stop Genocide in Gaza rally — Alexi addresses the Stop Genocide in Gaza rally

Alexi Dimond spoke at the rally to Stop Genocide in Gaza at Sheffield Town Hall on Wednesday.

Here is his speech in full.

Yesterday, the Al Ahli hospital was bombed in the single most egregious act of barbarism so far in Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza. A social media advisor to the Israeli PM Hananya Naftali tweeted immediately after the attack: “Israeli Airforce struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza” and posted a picture. This has since been deleted as has an IDF post on Facebook boasting about the attack. Over 500 people and likely hundreds more were killed in this attack. Now our media is scrambling to cast doubt on who is responsible, a willing accomplice in covering up for war crimes, just as they try to obscure the truth about the history of Palestine and the occupation.

There is no new war between Hamas and Israel as our media like to claim, but rather a continuation of a 76-year-long conquest and occupation which has intensified under the most repressive right-wing Israeli government in history. The situation persists because Western governments allow Israel to flout international law and subject the Palestinian population under its occupation to racist apartheid policies and subjugation, including a 15-year-long siege of Gaza.

Western racism against Palestinians has a long history, and the dehumanisation of Palestinians is a continuation of the colonial mindset that allowed Europeans to colonise and enslave the world. In 1937 Winston Churchill said of the Palestinian people and I quote: “I do not agree that the dog in the manger has the final rights to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time, I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance that it is a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the Black people of Australia, I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come to take their place”. This was the real Winston Churchill, not the white-washed version venerated today.

Unfortunately, this racist worldview is one that persists to this day. It is one that informs most of the British media, and politicians from both the Conservative and Labour Parties. Let us not forget that Keir Starmer said “Israel made the desert flower”. Over the last few weeks, we have heard unequivocal support for Israel’s war crimes from both the Leadership of the Conservatives and the Labour Party. Shame on them. They are complicit in these war crimes and must be held accountable.

I salute the few brave former Labour Councillors who have left the party over their leadership’s support for genocide. Councillors such as Amna Abdullatif from Manchester, Shaista Aziz and Amar Latif from Oxford and Cllr Jessie Hoskin, from Stroud district council who said: “The Labour party is no longer consistent with the values of human dignity, equality, and a world where everyone is safe and has what they need to thrive that I believe in and will continue to organise for in other areas of my work.”

Unlike the Labour and Conservative Parties and the UK media, we reject all racism, we reject anti-Palestinian racism, we reject antisemitism, we reject Islamophobia and we reject ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism and apartheid.

We know that international law must apply equally and that attacks on civilians and collective punishment can never be justified. We condemn our government for supporting Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza – including vetoing UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire. We are witnessing an attack on a captive civilian population of 2.3 million people, two-thirds of whom are refugees and half of whom are children with nowhere to go. Everyone in Gaza is a hostage.

We call for the release of all hostages. We also demand the release of those held in Israeli prisons – men women and children held without charge in administrative detention in contravention to international law. Every single person in Palestine must be free, free to move, free from discrimination, free from checkpoints and daily humiliation. That is what justice looks like. That is what will bring about peace.

Returning to Gaza. You don’t need to be a human rights lawyer to know that cutting off water, food and medicine, and targeting civilians are war crimes under international law. It is the definition of collective punishment, it is an act of genocide. Ordering 1.1 million people to leave their homes in less than 24 hours, and bombing them while they flee is genocide. Bombing the Rafah crossing to Egypt to stop aid from coming in and people getting out is genocide.

I urge everyone to keep protesting every day you can join groups supporting Palestinian rights, donate to Sheffield PSC, write to your MPs and councillors, let them know that you will not vote for them if they support war crimes and apartheid – and as my colleague Maleiki said last night – ask them specific questions and publicise their responses. If they will not condemn occupation – out them. If they will not condemn apartheid – out them. If they will not condemn genocide – out them.

Banner reading "Barclays funds crimes against humanity." On Saturday March 25th March some Green Party members joined with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Sheffield Extinction Rebellion to protest against Barclays continued support of both the Fossil Fuel industry and the Apartheid policies of the Israeli Government. Both Heather Hunt and Graham Wroe gave speeches. Sheffield Green Party recently committed itself to support the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. This is a coalition of organisations and individuals united to promote a city-wide response to Israel’s apartheid regime as happened in the 1980s when the people of Sheffield proudly joined the struggle against South African Apartheid. Please add your name as an individual by following this link. Here is a short video of the action.

If you have time this much longer version includes many of the speeches.

Sheffield Greens welcomed members of the Tadhamon choir to their monthly meeting in March. They spoke about their recent trip to Palestine and sang for us.

The meeting unanimously passed two motions. The first committed Sheffield Green Party to support the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. This is a coalition of organisations and individuals united to promote a city-wide response to Israel’s apartheid regime as happened in the 1980s when the people of Sheffield proudly joined the struggle against South African Apartheid.

The crime of apartheid involves creating and maintaining the systematic domination of one racial or ethnic group over another. Palestinian and international human rights organisations are agreed that apartheid is what is in evidence in the whole of historic Palestine. We support the Palestinian struggle against it and are campaigning for all Sheffield-based institutions and companies to sever any connection that gives support to Israel’s system of apartheid.

The second motion commits Sheffield Green Party to encourage Sheffield City Council to proceed with the town twinning arrangement with Nablus.

Green Party member and Tadhamon singer Heather Hunt said:

“The recently elected right-wing government in Israel has made explicit its intentions to extend the illegal settlements throughout Palestine and is stepping up its flagrant use of force to intimidate, hurt and kill Palestinians.

The Green Party has strong policies based on international law ensuring human rights for Palestinian and Israeli citizens. This includes support for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Members of the Tadhamon choir shared their first-hand accounts illustrated with images and a few songs, from their recent visit to the West Bank. This vivid account stimulated discussion on ways Sheffield Green Party can go further in putting policies into practice in support of justice for Palestinians.”

More information about their visit is at https://socialistchoir.org. uk/tadhamon-singers/

Notes

Here are the resolutions.

Resolution 1: Proposed by Heather Hunt. Seconded by Cllr Alexi Dimond

Sheffield Green Party agrees to pledge support for the aims of the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. The aims are as follows:

Oppose all forms of racism. eg.racism against Black and minority ethnic groups, antisemitism and Islamophobia
Raise Sheffield citizen’s awareness of the Palestinian people’s struggle against injustice imposed by Israeli apartheid, settler colonisation and occupation.
Make Sheffield into an Israeli Apartheid Free Zone by campaigning for business, local governmental, educational, sporting and cultural institutions to renounce all ties that support the Israeli apartheid system in line with the Palestinian BDS campaign.
Oppose the arm trade and all forms of military collaboration with Israel and call for the end of Israeli occupation and the siege of the Gaza Strip.
Call for sanctions against Israel until it abides by all international laws and UN resolutions affecting the rights of Palestinians including the refugees’ right of return.
Supports Palestinian grassroots organisations which promote equality for women, workers’ rights and the improvement of conditions for children.
Encourage Palestinian cultural activity in Sheffield
Oppose measures aimed at shutting down public criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Resolution 2. Proposed by Heather Hunt. Seconded by Cllr Alexi Dimond

Further to the invitation from the Mayor of Nablus to the Mayor of Sheffield in 2019, Sheffield Green Party will encourage and support further twinning arrangements with Nablus; be that formally with SCC and also through informal linking with educational and cultural organisations in both cities.

Tadhamon Choir. Saturday Jan 7th 2023 at 7pm, Central URC Church, Norfolk St S1 2JB

Book free tickets in advance here

Many of you will know about Tadhamon singer’s recent tour of Palestine and may even have read our blog. The trip had a profound effect on all of us who went, even those of us who had been to Palestine before. The cruelty and injustices of the Israeli occupation are really shocking.

All the Palestinians we had contact with asked us to tell the rest of the world what was happening because they feel really forgotten and isolated. So this performance of stories, songs and visuals is our way of shining a light on what is happening and amplifying the voices of the Palestinian people.

We hope you will come. It’s free but you do need to book.

Tag: Palestine

Palestine and the Local Elections

Ethical procurement policy breaks new ground

10-year learning journey

Notes to editors

Alexi Dimond supports the Palestine Camp outside Court

Make our city an Israeli apartheid-free zone

Green Councillor condemns UK complicity in Israeli war crimes.

Sign the pledge to support the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

Sheffield Greens support Israeli Apartheid Free Zone

Tadhamon Choir