Briefing for meeting venues
Introduction
In recent years groups that advocate in support of the state of Israel have been smearing organisations and wholly innocent individuals as antisemitic, pressuring venues to cancel meetings and lobbying employers to dismiss employees. Pro-Israel groups liaised with state bodies in Scotland to influence criminal cases against campaigners.
No one can have missed the attacks on the previous leader of a major UK political party as a promoter of antisemitism. Jeremy Corbyn, a high-profile critic of Israel and advocate of Palestinian rights, was cast as an antisemite along with a raft of lesser political figures and prominent academics who agreed with human rights organisations that Israel is an apartheid state or who simply defended others' freedom to discuss these issues. The Church of Scotland, the Scottish Trade Union Congress, Amnesty International, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign are among many who have been baselessly accused of antisemitism.
Within the context of already shrinking public spaces, the Israel lobby's weaponisation of antisemitism aims to shut down our ability to publicly organise, discuss and debate. Rights are being eroded, rights to challenge the complicity of corporations, our governments, and institutions who protect and arm a system of apartheid that harshly oppresses the Palestinian people.
These briefing notes are a guide for those prepared to defend our rights to public assembly and to free speech in the pursuit of justice and in opposition to the crimes of the state of Israel against the Palestinian people.
Who are the Israel lobby?
Political lobbying is a form of advocacy carried out by individuals or groups to influence governments, officials, or elected representatives. The Israel lobby is made up of organisations that work openly as well as behind the scenes to influence media and public opinion to promote the interests of the apartheid state.
In Scotland, the lobby includes the Confederation of Friends of Israel and their constituent groups, the Centre for Scotland-Israel Relations, the Honorary Consul for Israel in Scotland, JNF KKL Scotland and the leadership of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities. They work with similar organisations and individuals across the UK and internationally. Their partners include Israeli government officials and the Embassy of Israel, the Union of Jewish Students, the Israel-Britain Alliance, Stand with Us, We Believe in Israel, Christians United for Israel (a significant proportion of the Israel lobby are Christian Zionists), and more.
As with any coalition, the Israel lobby is not a monolith. However, their common aim is to protect the state of Israel from any santions arising from its violations of international law, entrenched system of apartheid and frequent massacres of Palestinians.
We found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid.'
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General
What is their strategy?
The Israel lobby works to counter increasing support for the Palestinians and their cause across international civil society. Since 2005 the Israeli government and pro-Israel groups around the world have struggled to respond effectively to the growing campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the state of Israel and complicit institutions and corporations (BDS).
Ron Prosor, former Israel ambassador in the UK, publicly lamented that while Israel enjoys support at the governmental level, this is far from the case at civil society and grassroots level. Prosor was echoing what the Israeli Reut Institute had previously highlighted: - that BDS campaigns enjoy increasing support at a local level from trade unions, church groups and other civil society organisations.
The Reut Institute is a think tank that provides strategic analyses for the Israeli government, its only client. They view BDS as a threat to the freedom of action of the state of Israel and work to brand the movement and its supporters as ‘delegitimizers’. De-legitimisation is defined as rejection of the political ideology of Zionism, for example by supporting the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
An important goal of the Israel lobby is to isolate and marginalise those who support BDS and who challenge Israeli apartheid by ‘aggressively outing, naming and shaming’ them. Most importantly, Israel lobby groups implement this strategy at a local and grassroots level - ‘it takes a network to fight a network’ according to the Reut Institute.
The IHRA working definition of antisemitism
The most potent weapon of the Israel lobby is the baseless smear of antisemitism. They have approached governments, local councils, and universities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism.
The 2018 Independent review of hate crime legislation in Scotland, however, commissioned by the Scottish Government and conducted by Lord Bracadale, rejected the IHRA definition. He opposed ‘a statutory aggravation to cover hostility towards a political entity’, noting perceptively that 'it would be open to interpretation and abuse for political ends'. Such abuse is becoming common.
Bracadale insisted that 'freedom of speech...included freedom to subject political entities and foreign states to legitimate criticism' and stressed the danger of 'curtailment of freedom of expression and freedom of political debate'.
Bracadale’s report referred to the case of 'racism' charges against SPSC members for a protest against an Israeli army-sponsored musical quartet as an example of the inappropriate use of law to inhibit political free speech.
In October 2022, the following warning came from the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance:
'The IHRA-WDA and the illustrative examples attached to it are wielded to prevent or chill legitimate criticisms of the state of Israel, a state that must, like any other in the UN system, be accountable for human rights violations it perpetrates. Those primarily harmed as a result are Palestinians, as well as human rights defenders advocating on their behalf. This harm is occurring in a period of heightened repression of Palestinians, including escalating, daily, gross violations of their human rights.'
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
Israel lobby groups, however, continue to pressure institutions to adopt the discredited IHRA definition. An alternative definition, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA), has been developed by an eminent group of scholars in the fields of Holocaust history, Jewish studies and Middle East studies to provide ‘clear guidance to identify and fight antisemitism while protecting free expression’. Institutions are starting to reject the IHRA definition. The University and College Union (UCU) has a clear policy of opposing the IHRA definition, and in 2022 the University of Aberdeen rejected it in favour of adopting the JDA.
SPSC - what we are up against
Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) works to end what Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UNHRC and others consider to be Israeli ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes again humanity’. We are opposed to all forms of racism and envisage a solution to the crisis in Israel-Palestine based on dismantling the apartheid structures enforced by the state of Israel and achieving equal rights for all.
Any campaign must defend its rights here in Scotland to assemble, organise and challenge the complicity of our governments, institutions and corporations in Israel's crimes.
- Racism charges against two SPSC members arising out of a pro-Palestine protest were dismissed in Glasgow Sheriff Court in August 2017.
- One pro-Israel activist was disciplined by the General Teaching Council-Scotland and another faces a Law Society of Scotland disciplinary hearing after they admitted setting up a fake 'pro-Palestine' Facebook page where they posted antisemitic materials and invented a crime which they falsely attributed to SPSC members to discredit the group.
- Sheriff John Scott in Edinburgh Sheriff Court ridiculed and threw out charges of racism against five SPSC members arising out of a pro-Palestinian protest.
- All 6,000 copies of a book falsely claiming that SPSC ‘demonised Jews’ had to be pulped following legal action and intervention by then-Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.
What can you do?
- Engage with the issues raised in this briefing.
- Venue managers who come under pressure to cancel an SPSC booking should get in touch to discuss any concerns they might have.
Get in touch: info@scottishpsc.org.uk