SPSC Statement
Tzipi Hotovely events cancelled!
3 June 2024
Two Scottish synagogues have cancelled meetings arranged on their premises for Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely. The events were scheduled to take place at Garnethill Synagogue (Glasgow) and Salisbury Road Synagogue (Edinburgh).
As outlined in our communication to the synagogues, Hotovely is a right-wing extremist who represents the apartheid, genocidal state of Israel who we insist must be protested wherever she appears. We welcome the open letter by Scottish Jews regarding the visit and the cancellation of the Hotovely events by the venues. The decision to cancel strengthens the voice of Scottish Jews united ‘against the association of Judaism with Israeli state policy, and with the weaponisation of Jewish identity to justify war crimes and crimes against humanity’.
Since making the call for the demonstrations, SPSC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has continued conversations with our organisers, members and supporters, responding to queries and concerns, and have met with some Jewish supporters of Palestinian rights. We felt it was important to send and publish our communication to Garnethill and Salisbury Road synagogues asking them to cancel the events and to clarify the purpose of the planned demonstrations and our position in relation to Hotovely, the Israeli government and our attitude to racism, including antisemitism.
It is critical for solidarity organisations and supporters of Palestinian rights to acknowledge the anti-racist principles of the Palestinian struggle and of our movement. This is what informs our decision-making and actions, and why SPSC made the call to demonstrate. We stand by our position that it is time, right now, for us to challenge, with clarity and determination, the conflation of Zionism and the state of Israel with Judaism and Jewish communities.
This is a challenge not only for Jewish activists and organisations who are at the core of the organising against Israeli genocide around the world. At a time when Palestinians face genocide, systems of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and the violence inherent within them, we must find ways to get over our fear when confronted with this conflation, confusion and weaponisation of antisemitism. For SPSC this means being clear that our solidarity in support of equality, justice and freedom for the Palestinian people is rooted in principles of anti-racism and equal rights for all people.
The state of Israel and their supporters do not need an excuse to smear Palestinians and the solidarity movement with antisemitism. We know that being fearful and ignoring the deliberate weaponisation of antisemitism does not work as a strategy. We invite everyone who believes that as a movement we need to find a better way, a more effective strategy that protects activists, the movement, our communities, including Jewish communities, and Palestinian lives, to engage with us so that we can develop this approach together.
SPSC open letter dated 2 June 2024 about scheduled visit by Tzipi Hotovely, Israeli Ambassador to the UK, to Garnethill Synagogue (Glasgow) and Salisbury Road Synagogue (Edinburgh)
Subject: Do not host representative of genocidal state of Israel
We are writing to you to urge you to cancel the event with Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely that is reported to be taking place at your synagogue.
Formerly Israel’s Settlement Minister, Hotovely denies there is a humanitarian crisis ongoing in Gaza, calls the Palestinian Nakba an ‘Arab lie’, and rejects Palestinian rights to their land claiming ‘This land is ours. All of it is ours.’, denying that Palestinians exist as a people. Hotovely is so far on the extreme right that even the likes of hard-right Islamophobe Melanie Phillips opposed her appointment as Israel’s ambassador.
At a time when the Israeli government is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, killing and maiming Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, kidnapping and torturing thousands of Palestinians, and working with extremist violent settlers to ethnically cleanse Palestinians communities, it is even more crucial that you reject any association with Hotovely and the Israeli government.
International civil society the world over is standing up against the genocidal state of Israel and demonstrating their support for Palestinian rights. The International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court are taking steps to finally hold Israel to account. We reject Israel’s claim to represent and act on behalf of Jews everywhere as well as their efforts to conflate Zionism and Judaism. It is the state of Israel, and their supporters, who endanger Jewish people everywhere. We, and the international solidarity movement, stand by Jewish groups and activists who are being silenced because of their opposition to genocide and support for Palestinian rights.
As an organisation in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle that is at its core anti-racist, opposing all forms of racism and in support equal rights for all people, we mean it when we say, ‘Never again for anyone’!
Please cancel the event with Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely and refuse to be used by the state of Israel as a human shield for genocide.
We look forward to your reply.
