The Jewish Telegraph (see article below) reports that East Renfrewshire Council are planning to endorse a celebration by local Zionists of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. We have written to the Council (which adjoins Glasgow and includes Barrhead, Thornliebank, Newton Mearns, Giffnock) arguing that they should not do so since:
- they should not celebrate the founding of a State with such an atrocious human rights record, an apartheid state
- it would be tantamount to a celebration of the ethnic cleansing of much of Palestine that was planned and carried out in 1948, and which created the world’s biggest, as yet unresolved, refugee problem
- Israel’s ethnic cleaning of Palestine is ongoing; celebrating 1948 is licensing current and future ethnic cleansing
- such a celebration has no support from any significant proportion of the people of East Renfrewshire
- it would send entirely the wrong message to people in Palestine, the wider Middle East and beyond
- the foundation of the State of Israel was achieved through the use of terrorism by Zionist gangs not only against the native people of Palestine. There would be anger if the council were to celebrate the activities of people who kidnapped and hanged British soldiers and who planted bombs in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem
- the Israeli Deputy Minister of Defence, Vilnai, has threatened a ‘Holocaust’ on the people of Gaza, most of them refugees from Israel’s earlier ethnic cleansing waves
- the new UN expert on Israel/Palestine, Jewish-American Professor Richard Falk, has compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people with that of the Nazis’ policies towards the people of the territories they occupied.
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Read letter from East Renfrewshire Chief Executive
Read Scottish PSC letter to East Renfrewshire Councillors.
"PROVOST TO JOIN BIRTHDAY PARTY
EAST Renfrewshire Council is to help the community celebrate Israel’s birthday next year.
The news comes following a meeting arranged by the Provost, Alex Mackie, pictured, with the president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, Philip Mendelsohn.
Mr Mendelsohn said: "We’d both taken up office in the early summer and the Provost felt it would be useful to establish a working relationship.
"I updated him on some of the community’s plans, including those for Israel’s Diamond Anniversary.
"It will be marked on May 8 next year by a major event now being planned by a number of organisations, under the guidance of the Representative Council.
"I am delighted that the Council has agreed not only to assist the community in its celebrations, but also agreed formally to mark the event with a public ceremony."
Mr Mendelsohn was also able to inform Provost Mackie that Yom Hashoah will be commemorated on May 1 next year and that he would be invited.
They also discussed ERC’s plans to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2008 which the Representative Council is assisting with.
Details of the Holocaust Memorial Day, Yom Hashoah and Yom Ha’atzmaut events will be announced in due course."
The Jewish Telegraph, 19 October 2007
