Edinburgh Sheriff’s ‘landmark ruling’ counters London Declaration

[Note: read this in conjunction with the Sunday Herald: Pro-Palestine group hits out after landmark case]

The Dangerous Dogs Act is the classic example of discredited legislation which tried to deal with a real problem. The EUMC 'working definition of anti-Semitism' and the London Declaration of 2009, claim to deal with the scourge of racism in our society, but selectively and slyly, through back-door administrative methods rather than an open debate over legislative proposals with an uncertain outcome.

Both the EUMC document and the London Declaration contain a list of laudable proposals to combat anti-Semitism, but they smuggle in among these some very anti-democratic initiatives which aim to criminalise the developing international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), called for by Palestinian civil society, against the state of Israel. They reprise Margaret Thatcher’s legislation, still on the statute books and still used by opponents of the BDS campaign against Israel, to inhibit British civil society campaigns to boycott apartheid South Africa.

An even more direct threat to existing democratic rights is the sinister proposal contained in the London Declaration to extend state protection to Zionist political ideas and criminalise ideas that critique them on democratic grounds. For example, the position that Israel should evolve into a state of all its citizens, rather than one which privileges Jews around the world over native Palestinians, would be criminalised. The EUMC would specifically criminalise anyone ‘claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor’, or ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’.  Both the above views are widespread, consistent with democratic values, and viewed as criminal (‘racist’, anti-Semitic’) by Gordon Brown and the British Government.

Thus the refreshing common sense spirit of Edinburgh Sheriff James Scott’s recent landmark ruling clashes inevitably with the anti-democratic content of the London Declaration endorsed by the British government. Whereas Sheriff Scott strives to protect human rights against over-encroachment from the state, the London Declaration would enshrine the rights of one specific apartheid state, Israel, that openly discriminates against its non-Jewish citizens.  The London Declaration would diminish the rights of British citizens to campaign politically for democratic rights for all.

Those of us who oppose racist or sectarian discrimination would be forced into silence to protect the racist structures of the Israeli state.

An article in today’s Scottish Sunday Herald at last raises these issues publicly. The article contains several signs of haste, which the following notes address:

• Note 1: ‘...an appeal for a civilised Palestinian society’ should read ‘...an appeal for a non-Zionist state in all of historic Palestine’
• Note 2: replace ‘definition of’ with ‘distinction between’
• Note 3: replace ‘violating’ with ‘infringing’