Green Party nominates Israel-critic Jill Stein for president
Left-wing secular Jew, who was also 2012 candidate, backs BDS, calls for ending all US aid to Jewish state
The US Green Party on Saturday nominated Jill Stein, a harsh critic of Israel, as its presidential candidate.
At a convention attended by hundreds in Houston, Texas, the party also nominated human rights activist Ajumu Baraka as her running mate.
Before entering politics, Stein was a practicing physician for 25 years. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, she transitioned into activism in the mid-1990s.
Like the Green Party as a whole, Stein supports the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, or BDS. She places Israel in the company of non-democratic American allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In tweets, she has accused Israel of “the pillage of Palestine,” and written that Israel’s “war crimes & human rights violations are off the charts.”
The problem isn't just unemployment in Palestine. The problem is the pillage of Palestine by Israel. #FinalFive #DebateWithJill
— Dr. Jill Stein???? (@DrJillStein) March 22, 2016
“With regard to Israel, the United States has encouraged the worst tendencies of the Israeli government as it pursues policies of occupation, apartheid, assassination, illegal settlements, demolitions, blockades, building of nuclear bombs, indefinite detention, collective punishment and defiance of international law,” a position paper on her foreign policy reads.
Stein’s platform covers a range of issues, from criminal justice reform to education and foreign policy. But her top pledge is a “Green New Deal,” which would “create 20 million jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030.” She wants to end all subsidies for fossil fuel companies and phase out fossil fuel and nuclear plants.
Stein also wants to create a universal basic income that all citizens would receive from the government, and to guarantee paid work to every American with a $15-per-hour minimum wage. Like the former Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, she opposes free trade agreements. She also supports a “Medicare for all” plan that would enact single-payer universal healthcare. And like Sanders, she calls for universal free college education.
The Green Party candidate is currently polling between three to five percent in the polls.
Speaking to the Voice of America after the convention, Stein spoke about the possibility that she could siphon votes away from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and unintentionally help put republican candidate Donald Trump in office.
“I would feel horrible if Donald Trump got elected and I would feel horrible if Hillary Clinton got elected. Donald Trump says despicable things and is, no doubt, a danger to humanity, but Hillary Clinton has also done horrible things and is also a danger to humanity,” Stein said.
Stein’s 2012 Green Party presidential campaign garnered fewer than 500,000 votes, good enough for 0.36 percent of the total. But that number was good enough for Stein to break the record for most votes for a female presidential candidate — a number Clinton will almost certainly shatter in November.
