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GGEC-EGGEC joint statement on Keir Starmer’s and John Swinney’s failure to condemn Israel’s genocide and show support for Palestinians.
The Gaza Ge
nocide Emergency Committees of Edinburgh and Glasgow condemn in the strongest terms the October 7th statements of Keir Starmer and John Swinney, and their erasure of Palestinian and Lebanese suffering under the genocidal project of Israel.
UKPrime Minister Keir Starmer has an undeniable record of supporting Israeli genocide and apartheid. We must never forget his support for Israel's right to deny water to the long-besieged people of Gaza. In his official written government statement commemorating the anniversary of October 7th—the beginning of what the ICJ calls a probable genocide—Starmer couldn't even mention the word Palestine or Palestinians, despite the tens of thousands in Gaza indiscriminately murdered by the Israeli military. He parroted debunked claims of "babies killed, mutilated, and tortured by ... Hamas" manufactured by Israel to continue its ongoing genocide and unending dehumanisation of the Palestinian people.
He called for the return of hostages captured by the Palestinian resistance, but said not a word on the thousands of Palestinians interned and tortured in Israeli captivity. Additionally, he repeated baseless lies of mass rape by Hamas while remaining silent on the systematic rape of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and the public demonstrations in Israel supporting the rapist guards and soldiers.
Starmer called for 'peace' while selling arms to genocidal Israel and supporting Israel's latest devastating attack on Lebanon, just as previous UK governments have supported Israel's earlier invasions of Lebanon. Having endorsed Israel's genocide in Gaza and the escalation of settler and military violence against Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, Starmer's continuing silence enables Netanyahu and his administration to enact their threat to make Lebanon another Gaza and bomb them "back to the Stone Age".
Scottish First Minister John Swinney also marked the beginning of the Israeli genocide without mentioning Palestinians or extending any sympathy towards those Scots who have had scores of family members murdered by the Israeli military. Swinney maintained the Scottish Government's refusal to even acknowledge the Israeli genocide. This refusal must be seen in conjunction with the Scottish External Affairs Minister's meeting with Israel’s Deputy Ambassador this August.
We call on Scottish civil society to continue placing pressure on the Scottish Government to end all public funding and support for arms companies complicit in Israel's genocide. We must also pressure the Scottish government to publicly support the South African case against Israeli genocide at the International Court of Justice
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