A GP under investigation after making anti-Israel social media posts is among those behind the Green Party’s controversial ‘Zionism is racism’ motion, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Rebecca Jones, elected as a party councillor in May in Lewisham, south-east London, is one of 745 ‘supporters’ of the policy, proposed by Green member Lubna Speitan.
The motion was passed by 1,022 votes, with 813 against, at the party’s annual conference earlier this month, making it party policy.
It defines Zionism as an ideology supporting ‘an ethnonationalist Jewish state’, and backs ‘a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine’, including modern-day Israel.
Dr Jones, also known as ‘The Vegan Doctor’, who signed the motion, is facing disciplinary proceedings over social media posts, including one saying, ‘Burn Zionism to the ground’, with an image of a burning Israeli flag.
The GP has also called Bob Vylan, the punk duo who caused widespread controversy after chanting ‘death to the IDF’ at Glastonbury Festival last year, her ‘new favourite band’.
Dr Jones described a reading of the supposed last will and testament of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of the October 7 attacks on Israel, as ‘so beautiful’.
The General Medical Council, which she has told her nearly 20,000 followers is trying to ‘censor and silence doctors’, opened the fitness to practise investigation in June.
‘It was because I speak up against genocide and apartheid in Palestine,’ Dr Jones wrote.
When approached for comment, she told the Mail: ‘Anti-Zionist views constitute a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010... Zionism can legitimately be viewed as inherently racist, imperialist and colonial. Supporting Palestinian liberation is both moral and just.’
Rebecca Jones, a Green Party councillor in south-east London, is the subject of a fitness to practise investigation by the General Medical Council
Also among the signatories are two of six members of Palestine Action involved in a foiled plot to damage an Israeli drone factory in Shenstone, Staffordshire, in March 2021.
Jeremy Parker was found guilty of possessing an article with the intent to destroy property – but was spared jail and handed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.
He was also ordered to complete 20 rehabilitation days and 150 hours of unpaid work, following a trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court in September 2023.
Parker told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I am proud to support movements that work to enhance justice in the world.
‘I reject all forms of racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, and I believe in the right of the Palestinians to self-determination.’
The jury failed to reach a verdict on his co-defendant Helen Caney.
She was later re-tried and found guilty of having articles with intent to destroy or damage property in January 2024 – but spared jail, with a nine-month sentence suspended for two years.
The pair were part of a group which the judge said would have committed more than £30,000 of criminal damage at the site owned by arms company Elbit Systems.
Caney responded to The Mail on Sunday with almost exactly the same statement as that of Dr Jones.
Others listed as supporters of the controversial motion include Hau-Yu Tam, the deputy leader of Lewisham Council, control of which was won by the Greens at local elections in May.
She has previously faced a backlash for calling Labour MP David Lammy and the Conservatives’ Priti Patel ‘coconuts’ before apologising.
Ms Tam, who defected from Labour in 2025, also once retweeted posts calling Zionism ‘pure evil’, and insisting it ‘must be abolished’ – as well as others before claiming it is ‘unquestionably the Nazism of our time’.
She was later cleared of a conduct complaint by a council investigation.
She also once expressed support for a legal bid to have Hamas, a proscribed organisation, taken off the terror list, saying she was ‘extremely proud’ of a lawyer acting on its behalf.
Ms Tam is joined on the list of backers of the motion by Patrick Thelwell, who was spared jail for throwing five eggs at King Charles and Queen Camilla on a visit to unveil a statue of the late Queen Elizabeth II in November 2022.
Thelwell, then 23, was handed a 12-month community order with 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay costs of £600 and a £114 surcharge at a rate of £5 per week.
He now works as an ‘ecological gardener’, ‘filmmaker’ and ‘Green Party activist’, sharing posts with his more than 7,000 Instagram followers, and proclaiming in his bio, ‘I egg kings’.
The ‘Zionism is racism’ motion is facing mounting backlash, with Green leader Zack Polanski, who has now been banned from Israel, admitting he does not support its current form.
Four out of the five Green MPs have also opposed it – as has Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who ruled out a coalition with the Greens following the motion, calling it ‘wrong’ and ‘anti-Semitic’.
Labour also warned on Thursday it could scrap power-sharing deals with the party on local councils in nearly 20 areas amid the crisis – and gave councillors a week to respond.
Thelwell, Ms Tam, Ms Speitan and the Green Party have been contacted for comment.
