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The well-funded group One Voice held a meeting on Monday 10th November with Glasgow University Rector Charles Kennedy. One Voice claims to represent both Palestinian and Israeli grass-roots opinion and to oppose ‘extremism on both sides’. The first claim is bogus; their so-called ‘balance’ is between ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing, carried out by both state and settlers, and the Palestinian victims .
One Voice incessantly attacks ‘extremists’, but who are the real ‘extremists’ here?
One Voice refuses to:·
- even use the word ‘occupation’ to describe Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank & Gaza·
- call for the dismantling of all Israeli illegal settlements·
- support the internationally endorsed right of ethnically cleansed refugees to return to their homes·
- mention the decision of the International Court of Justice that Israel’s Wall is illegal and must be removed·
- discuss an exit from apartheid, colonisation and occupation based on a secular, democratic state for all its citizens
One Voice supports:·
- Israel continuing as a ‘Jewish State’ rather than as a democratic state of all of its citizens·
- Israeli annexation of some illegal settlement blocs and large parts of ethnically-cleansed East Jerusalem·
- the continued holding of thousands of hostages/prisoners – many without trial - by Israel’s occupation forces until all resistance ceases·
- a nuclear-armed Israeli military superpower alongside a demilitarised Palestinian statelet
The One Voice website lists some of the ugliest ethnic-cleansing voices in Israel among its supporters, e.g. members of the Likud (a party inspired by Mussolini), as well as Matan Vilnai, who recently threatened the people of Gaza with a ‘holocaust’ if they continued to resist Israel’s brutal siege.
It is shameful, but hardly surprising, that University Rector Charles Kennedy should endorse an initiative based on the denial of basic human rights to the Palestinian people. Sadly, this is not Charles Kennedy’s first involvement with a pro-Israeli group committed to displacing Arabs and replacing them with Jewish immigrants; Kennedy was a Patron of the JNF (Jewish National Fund) whose involvement in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine is well-documented. Kennedy supported the JNF in its stated aims of increasing its land-holdings in Israel / Palestine. No JNF land may be sold or leased to an Arab.
A member of the Glasgow University OneVoice Committee has alleged that some of the information above is 'not true'. Please tell us which part.
Mick Napier
