Edinburgh newsletter – May 2013

Edinburgh SPSC Branch Newsletter for May

Welcome to this late-spring newsletter from the Edinburgh branch of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
 
We have a very busy month upcoming with important events both new and ongoing in our campaigns to support the rights and freedom of the people of Palestine.

Here are more details and links below for your information on how you can help and how you can get involved. Join us in our work on the streets of Edinburgh, come to our meetings, join our discussions. Even if it's only for an occasional hour or so, everybody can help.
 
But remember, if you can't make it along in person then you can still make a difference.
 
It's just a click away.
 
You can easily send a pro-forma letter on any of a range of issues through the websitehttp://www.coordin8.org  to various people, institutions and authorities including your local MP's, MSP's and Councillors. It only takes a minute.
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Branch Meetings
 
The previous meeting in April was dominated by the nuclear issue with an excellent attendance. The domestic 'Scrap Trident' campaign in Scotland and also Israel's missiles at the Dimona military complex were discussed. 
 
Our next meeting was Thursday 2nd May and included:
  • The ongoing BDS Campaign against Sainsburys,      
  • The June Scottish visit of Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak,      
  • The SPSC residential weekend at Comrie in June,    
  • The 'Generation Palestine' book launch,      
  • Lobbying of MSPs on nuclear disarmament.
 
The main aim of the meeting was to get ourselves organised for these important events.  More details are below. If you are interested in getting involved in organising for one of these campaigns/coming events email //campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk" mce_href="http://campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk">campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk
 
May Day Parade in Edinburgh
 
Edinburgh May Day is on Saturday 4th May and will assemble at Johnston Terrace under the castle at 11:00am. The parade will then march to a rally at the Pleasance. More details here:www.edinburghandlothiansmayday.org/
There will then be speeches and workshops at the Pleasance Theatre from 12:00pm.
 
Help out the Scottish PSC stall and to give out leaflets. Text us at 07931200361.
 
Sainburys BDS Campaign

We held another stall in April outside Sainsbury's in Rose St to collect signatures for letters to their management asking them not to trade with companies that are involved in Israel's illegal occupation and violations of international law and human rights.

We want Sainburys to stop trading with companies involved in Israel's settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Every new imposition of an Israeli settler breaks the 4th Geneva Convention, every item of produce grown and exported breaches the International Hague Resolutions. Supermarkets such as Sainburys are complicit in their involvement with these crimes. 
 
You can help by joining with us this Saturday May 4th, again at Rose St. After the May Day rally we will be heading straight over to Sainsburys at 2pm until 4pm. Meet with us there in this important BDS campaign.
 
But if you can't make it along then please spare a minute to send a letter to Sainsburys at this link. Coordin8 Sainsburys letter

St Andrews JNF and IDF fundraiser


A great victory for BDS in Scotland.

The Golf Hotel in St Andrews on Friday 26th April cancelled a booking organised to fundraise for ‘Friends of the IDF’(Israeli Defence Force) and the JNF(Jewish National Fund) after Scottish PSC and other Palestine solidarity groups called for a protest.
 
The 'Friends of the IDF' fundraise for projects benefiting the Israeli Army and soldiers, an occupation force that brutalises, humiliates, kills and maims Palestinians. It commits widespread human rights abuses to maintain the illegal occupation and settlements which brazenly flouts international law.  

The JNF is an openly racist organisation that operates a system of land management that bars Muslim and Christian citizens of Israel from leasing, buying or sometimes sleeping overnight on JNF-owned lands. Read more here

Protest at JNF fund-raiser at Cowan's Law
 
Our actions against the JNF in Scotland will continue against another event planned soon.

The JNF are holding a fundraiser to promote their ethnic cleansing. This will take place at Cowan’s Law, near Moscow in Ayrshire on Tuesday June 4th. This follows growing annual protests leading to their being denied the continued use of Bonnyton Golf Club for their criminal activities.  
 
We need as many people as possible to come with us to Cowan's Law to help thwart the activites of the JNF in Scotland. Mark the 4th June in your diary now. Contact : //sofiah@scottishpsc.org.uk" mce_href="http://sofiah@scottishpsc.org.uk">sofiah@scottishpsc.org.uk
 
For more information on the national and international campaigns by 'Stop the JNF' click on this link to their website. www.stopthejnf.org
 
SPSC residential weekend: Politics of effective solidarity
 
Scottish PSC are holding their annual residential weekend event from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th Junein Comrie near Crieff. Book now for a place.
 
Take time to discuss and debate important issues that inform the nature of our solidarity with Palestinians. Contact //sofiah@scottishpsc.org.uk" mce_href="http://sofiah@scottishpsc.org.uk">sofiah@scottishpsc.org.uk  to register a place. Registration is only £30 (£20 concession) and includes accommodation with meals.
 
The programme includes a film on the Sports Boycott against South African apartheid. It will also have campaign workshops on:
  • 'No to Brand Israel - Lessons from Boycott Actions against Apartheid Israel'·        
  • 'International Aid to Palestine/Who is it aiding?' ·      
  • 'Scottish Independence/What could it mean for Palestinian Solidarity'·        
  • 'Zionism and Settler Colonialism'·      
  • 'Political prisoners'·      
  • 'G4S'
 
Scrap Trident campaign
 
Scottish PSC is a coalition partner of the 'Scrap Trident' campaign. A motion by MSP Bill Kidd in the Scottish Parliament calls for nuclear disarmament in Scotland and the Middle-East.
 
A quote from the motion states that it "... endorses the recent call by the UN General Assembly for Israeli civil and military nuclear facilities to be opened to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and notes with concern the refusal of Israel alone among regional states to attend the planned December 2012 UN conference in Helsinki on banning nuclear weapons throughout the Middle East.."
 
On 15th April SPSC members took part in the blockade at the Faslane Naval Base on the Clyde. Hundreds of demonstrators from all over the country were calling for Trident nuclear weapons stored there to be scrapped. There were 47 arrests. All the gates were blocked and the base was completely shut from 7am until 10am. The entrance was filled with people who were singing and in good spirits.  
 
As Edinburgh SPSC member Angus MacLean reported there was "lots of singing: Bin the Bomb and other peace songs" in a very organised gathering.
 
Activists from a dozen campaign groups and political parties laid down in the entrance to the base and locked
themselves together with metal and plastic tubes, chains and thumb cuffs. They even managed to block the road at several places for short periods of time. Those arrested ranged in age from 19 to 83 and came from across Scotland, Wales and England. Read more here about the campaign www.scraptrident.org

Nakba Day 2013
 
This year is the 65th anniversary of the Nakba. The name means "Day of the Catastrophe" and will be observed on Wednesday 15th May this year. For Palestinians it is an annual day of commemoration of their displacement from their homes and land, a process carried out by Zionist institutions and militias to prepare for the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. 
 
An estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled during a terror campaign by Zionist forces. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated and destroyed. Many innocent men, women and children were massacred.
 
Today the refugees of the Nakba still demand their legal 'Right of Return' as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. Read a detailed account on the SPSC website here: The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined

Scottish writer Iain Banks on Palestine

 
It was with sadness that we heard that local writer Iain Banks announced he has cancer and may have just months to live.
 
After Israeli commandos killed activists on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010, Iain Banks was among the first international figures to endorse the boycott of Israel. He urged writers, artists and academics to “convince Israel of its moral degradation and ethical isolation, preferably by simply having nothing to do with this outlaw state."
 
In an article published in The Guardian early in April he concluded:
"The BDS campaign for justice for the Palestinian people is one I would hope any decent, open-minded person would support. Gentile or Jew, conservative or leftist, no matter who you are or how you see yourself, these people are our people, and collectively we have turned our backs on their suffering for far too long."
 
It forms part of Iain's contribution to a new book called 'Generation Palestine'. You can read the full Guardian article at this link: Cultural boycott of Israel
 
Edinburgh SPSC offer our best wishes to Iain at this time and also our gratitude for his support of the rights and freedoms of the people of Palestine.
 
Rich Wiles, editor of ‘Generation Palestine’, will speak in Edinburgh as part of a Scottish tour in June.
Contact //campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk" mce_href="http://campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk">campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk to get involved.
 
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There will an even busier month upcoming in June so make sure you read regular updates from the local branch here in Edinburgh. Join our Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/groups/371468392938401/
 
And bookmark the SPSC website. There will be more detailed information published regularly on our calendar of events plus new articles about Palestine and Israel. www.scottishpsc.org.uk
 
Best wishes
 
Edinburgh SPSC 
 
" ....the ideology that enabled the depopulation of half of Palestine's native people in 1948 is still alive and continues to drive inexorable, sometimes indiscernible, cleansing of those Palestinians who live there today." (Ilan Pappé: 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine')