Scottish Government & Israel/Palestine – an updated chronology
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable”.
George Orwell
The Scottish Government’s positions on Israel/Palestine are in flux, responding to pressures from a furious public opinion as well as the realpolitik that led the SNP to embrace NATO, where Israel is a virtual member.
30 January 2024
A Scottish Government body, Scottish Development International sent a trade mission to Israel in January 2010, concentrating on 'life sciences' while memories were still raw after the Israeli massacre of January 2009, a horrible example of Israel's leading role internationally in death sciences. Such trade with Israel flew in the face of the Palestinian call for BDS and, however minimally, helped to finance future massacres. Israel's advanced technology is designed to allow the genocidal state to dominate Palestinian people to such an extent that they do not need to negotiate. Those who trade in Israeli technology are literally helping Israel to avoid any concessions to the Palestinians whose land they are stealing. So,
1. Opposition to the Palestinian call for BDS χ
Three months later, on BBC TV’s prime time Question Time on 25 March 2010, Scottish Government First Minister Alex Salmond singled out Israel for condemnation after an Israeli death squad masquerading as tourists murdered Palestinian Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room (on January 19). The assassination squad had travelled on purloined or borrowed British passports to carry out their grisly mission. The Scottish First Minister insisted at that time that, “You can’t have normal relationships if you believe another country has been involved in what Israel has been involved in”. Salmond said the response to such criminality “should be more than expelling a diplomat”, which he derided as a “diplomatic dance”, and added, “this has implications for example in trading relationships”.
The First Minister also took a firm line against Scottish Zionist efforts to portray Scotland as a country with a serious anti-semitism problem, such that Scottish Jews were leaving due to fears over their safety. Rejecting the suggestion outright, Salmond told an audience in Glasgow that "…Jews in Scotland aren't facing a wave of antisemitic behaviour that is jeopardising this community.” He went further and delivered a stinging rebuke to those who claimed to speak on behalf of Scotland's Jews: “I don't believe that the Jewish community is under siege nor do I believe that it feels itself to be under siege.” Rejecting also the Zionist assertion of a privileged relationship between the Scottish Jewish community and a foreign state, Israel, he stated that "The Jewish people in Scotland aren't judged by the actions of the State of Israel, nor do I think that you should accept that you are being judged by the policies of Israel."
So, the Scottish First Minister argues that:
2. Israel is not a normal state and should be subject to economic sanctions √
3. Zionist claims of Scotland suffering from serious anti-semitism are completely unfounded and even fabricated by those who make the claim. √
4. Jewish citizens in Scotland are not responsible for Israel's criminality √
Unfortunately, less than a year passed before the Scottish Government gave a grant of £200,000 of Scottish taxpayers’ money to an Israeli settler company, Eden Springs. The settler company’s business plan included the promotion of the products of another Israeli settler company, Soda Stream, headquartered in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumin in the occupied West Bank.
The £200,000 grant followed a July 2009 appeal for help by an Eden Springs director, Graeme Carruthers, to the Scottish Government to deal with a “pressing situation” caused by a “wave of recent protests that is threatening the future of Eden Springs UK” due to the company being “targeted by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign”. Carruthers' letter pleaded for help from the Scottish Government “to prevent further damage to this Scottish based company”.
At the end of Oc
tober 2012, the Scottish First Minister welcomed the Israeli Ambassador to Bute House for what Israel's honorary consul to Scotland, Stanley Lovatt, said was a "very convivial meeting". Although the Israeli Ambassador raised his concerns with the First Minister about SPSC, "elements of extreme hostility to Israel in parts of Scottish society", Alex Salmond’s office made no reference with the Israeli visitor to widespread Scottish concerns about Israel’s brutal human rights record and mass killings in Gaza, contenting itself with issuing a bland statement reporting the meeting.
Humza Yousaf later welcomed the Israeli Ambassador to the Scottish Parliament, again on behalf of all Scots. Both these meetings violated informal assurances given to a delegation of three members of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign during a meeting with Minister Fiona Hyslop in the Scottish Parliament on 1st July 2010 that the Israeli Ambassador would not be welcomed by the Scottish Government. The SPSC delegation had asked the Scottish Government to follow in the footsteps of the Speaker of the Welsh Assembly who had shunned the Israeli Ambassador in protest at Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people.
On May 13th 2014, Humza Yousaf shocked many by stating that the Scottish Government opposes the call from Palestine for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel to compel it to recognise Palestinian human rights under international law. "I can give you the Scottish government's vow that it is our policy not to boycott Israel..." This statement represented a move towards clear pro-Israeli positions ten weeks before a murderous Israeli assault on Gaza that saw more than 1,800 Palestinians slaughtered in Gaza and many killed across the West Bank.
The Scottish Minister for External Affairs told the same meeting that Israel was not an apartheid state, and made it a triple whammy by reassuring his mainly Zionist audience that the Scottish Government had adopted a “position on the Middle East [that] doesn’t vary much from the UK government”.
This was an unambiguous shift and, cumulatively, a shock to supporters of the Scottish Government and many others:
5.Donating Scottish taxpayers' money to an Israeli settler company to fight off a boycott campaign χ
6. welcoming the Israeli Ambassador to Edinburgh with no public reference to Israel’s brutal human rights record χ
7. rejection of the Palestinian appeal for solidarity through BDS χ
8. resiling from Alex Salmond’s earlier position to an acceptance of Israel as a “normal state” and not a brutal apartheid system χ
9. moving the SNP’s foreign policy to something very similar to Cameron and Hague. χ
Three months later, under the pressure of mass public revulsion at Israel’s massacres of Palestinians during July and August 2014, the Scottish Government went into reverse yet again, adopting positions that Scots widely welcomed. The Scottish Government promised significant medical aid, including opening Scottish hospitals to those maimed and injured by the Israeli attacks, which Humza Yousaf condemned in “the strongest terms” in a letter to the Edinburgh demonstration for Gaza of August 9. In sharply worded criticism, he condemned the Israeli “depth of inhumanity that we have witnessed over civilian deaths in Gaza”. The Scottish Government also called for an arms embargo on Israel and an investigation into Israeli war crimes. Very welcome developments:
10. promise to open Scottish hospitals to some of the wounded and maimed survivors of Israel's attack on Gaza √
11. condemnation of "the depth of inhumanity" of the Israeli massacres √
12. call for an arms embargo on Israel √
13. call for an investigation into Israeli war crimes √
However, a meeting took place in Edinburgh the following year that was not supposed to be made public. Scotland's top legal official, the Lord Advocate, met with an Israeli Embassy official "to discuss Jewish relationships in Scotland so, a very general, broad ranging discussion. There will also be discussion about the Israeli and Scottish prosecutorial systems."
This is outrageous on several grounds:
14. the Scottish Government accepted the Zionist claim that the Israeli Government has a special relationship with Jewish Scots. χ
15. The top Scottish legal officer met to compare notes between the Scottish and the Israeli prosecutorial systems, where the latter has a virtually 100% (actually 99.7%) conviction rate for Palestinians in the Israeli apartheid system. χ
In August 2017 Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister endorsed an event in Edinburgh to celebrate "all things Israeli". Both SNP and Scottish Labour leaders supported a celebration of 'all things Israeli'. Sturgeon urged support for an event organised by the Israeli Embassy and the Confederation of Friends of Israel in Scotland (COFIS). The Shalom Festival showcased Israel as a fine place where Palestinians are not periodically massacred, Organisers claimed that Jewish-only roads are not barred to Palestinians, and that there are no separate legal systems for Israelis and Palestinians, with normal court procedures for Jews and the above-mentioned 99.7% conviction rate for Palestinians. No mention either of the recent appointment to the post of Chief Military Rabbi of Eyal Kareem, a rabbi who endorsed the rape by Israeli soldiers of 'comely Gentile women' if it boosted Israeli soldiers' morale. COFIS, one of the sponsors of the Shalom Festival; are supporters of every Israeli massacre and crime against the Palestinian people.
On 5 January 2024, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf called out Israel's actions in Gaza as "tantamount to ethnic cleansing" and that Israeli officials - including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military commanders - must be held accountable for the deaths of civilians if the country does not "immediately cease indiscriminate attacks" in Gaza
On 27 January 2024, a Scottish Government official briefed the BBC during the Gaza genocide that the Scottish Government was "deeply concerned" by - in the sense of finding credible - the latest in a long line of Israeli propaganda offensives against UNRWA. The Israeli Government attack on UNRWA was based on "evidence" from interrogating prisoners. A few weeks earlier Amnesty International had found israel guilty of mass arrests leading to "inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners" and state indifference to "incidents of "torture and death in custody". The BBC reported the Scottish Government being "deeply concerned" by Israeli claims about the alleged behaviour of UNRWA alongside a statement that "we have no plans to provide further support toi UNRWA at this stage". The original article title, Scottish aid to UNRWA agency paused after Hamas attack was changed after First Minister Humza Yousaf stated unambiguously that this was not the case. The pro-genocide Times of Israel, however, had already gleefully promoted and did not amend the BBC report suggesting Scottish Government support for the Israel case against UNRWA.
Qu: Who briefed the BBC on behalf of the Scottish Government while the US, UK and allies were cutting off aid to Palestinians via UNRWA during the Israeli genocide?
So, very bad, very good and a house divided?
16. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon sponsored an event by the Israeli Embassy and the extreme racists of Glasgow Friends of Israel/COFIS. χ
17 First Minister Humza Yousaf publicly acknowledges Israeli ethnic cleansing and calls for the perpetrators to be held accountable, the sharpest of contrasts with the corrupt, murderous gang in London.√
18. Sinister briefing to the BBC by an anonymous Scottish Government official is picked up and used by the Times of Israel,χ before it was firmly rebutted by the First Minister. √
Final tally = 9√ and 10χ
Taking the long view, it is essential to maintain public pressure on the Scottish Government to prevent yet more backsliding in the future from the positive positions they have adopted and to move them to broaden their notion of sanctions from the crucial field of arms to a more general commitment to support the Palestinian call for BDS until Israel conforms to international law and recognises Palestinian human rights.
Mick Napier
West Calder
30 Jan 2024