Issues surrounding the conflict and the need for boycott of Israel

We stand for an end to Israeli occupation of all lands conquered in 1967 or subsequently, the right of refugees to return to the areas from which they were ethnically cleansed, an end to British-Israeli arms sales and purchases, and self-determination for the Palestinian people.

  • We publicise in Scotland the persecution of the Palestinian people by the Israeli armed forces and settlers and build active solidarity with the Palestinians in their struggle for justice. We seek to influence government and other public and private institutions in Scotland towards policies promoting Palestinian rights. We encourage and facilitate visits to Palestine by Scots interested in gaining an understanding of the reality of this conflict.

  • As a campaign we take no position on the state or states that should exist following a resolution to the present conflict. We welcome as members those who support a two-state solution, an Israeli state existing alongside a Palestinian state, as well as those who support the establishment of a single state in Israel/Palestine not dominated by either ethnic group.

  • We believe that only a solution based on justice for all can bring a lasting peace and acceptable quality of life for the people of the region. This includes the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in the camps and the Palestinian diaspora. We stand with the Palestinians of the camps in their fifty-year struggle for their human rights, above all their right to return to their stolen lands and properties.

  • We stand also with the Palestinians of Israel¸ both citizens and non-citizens of the state. We highlight and oppose Israel’s Apartheid system.

  • We support the right of the Palestinian people to resist oppression¸ as guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. This does not imply that we support all of the tactics employed by the various resistance organizations¸ while recognizing the unequal nature of the struggle that they face.

  • We oppose racism in all its forms¸ including Islamophobia and anti-Jewish racism. We recognize that the Israeli state continues to benefit from anti-Semitism while the Palestinians suffer.

  • We note with alarm the erosion of support from western governments for the two-state solution based on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in the 1967 conflict. Particularly unacceptable is the recent change in US government policy in favour of recognising facts created by Israeli settlement construction. We view the UK’s support for Ariel Sharon’s "disengagement" plan in a similar light. The UK claim to see this as a positive step towards the two state solution is grossly unrealistic given the current realities.

  • We note also the failure of western governments to match their rhetoric on human rights with action in support of the defenceless Palestinian population. For example we regard the UK’s support for maintaining the favourable trading status of Israel with the European Union (against the wishes of the European Parliament) as an expression of complicity with the crimes of the Israeli regime.

  • We note the struggles of the Israeli peace movement under the most disadvantageous conditions, and its inability to prevent the ongoing genocide as long as the political and social corruption of billions of annual US dollars in military and economic ‘aid’ continues and as long as such massive US protection encourages the Israeli government culture of impunity and dismissal of overwhelming world opinion.

  • We note the role of the UN in the initial violation of the rights of the native Palestinians in 1948, and its complete inability to arrange the return of a single refugee from 1948 until the present day in spite of the UN’s support for the founding of the State of Israel being conditional on such a return.

  • We believe that only the internationalisation of the struggle against Israeli genocide holds out any hope for the desperate people of Palestine. This means, in a situation where massive numbers of people in Britain have realised that terrible crimes are being committed by the Israeli state:

    1. mobilising our resources to build a boycott of Israeli goods, as well as a boycott of official sporting and cultural links to send a clear message to Israelis that violations of Palestinian rights bring negative consequences
    2. campaigning to cut the flow of funds from Scotland to Israeli institutions which violate the human and national rights of Palestinians.

Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign
28 Auguest 2005