Scottish Council firm against demented Zionist hysteria

"During the Israeli mass killings of Operation Cast Lead, West Dunbartonshire Council passed a motion to support the appeal from Palestinian civil society for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel, and institutions supporting that state, until Israel respects all its obligations under international law.   All Israeli companies fall within the scope of BDS.  Individual Israelis do not.  That is why Israeli publishing companies are included in the boycott.  West Dunbartonshire Council's statement can be read here."

On Friday 21 May 2011 Marcus Dysch wrote in the Jewish Chronicle that "Books by Israeli authors could be removed from Scottish libraries" as part of an elected Scottish Council's BDS campaign. Dysch claimed "the ban is enforceable in libraries run by West Dunbartonshire Council" and referred to un-named "Israel supporters" who claimed that this ban "aligned the council with Iran and Saudi Arabia".

The following day, the Scottish Daily Express claimed that West Dunbartonshire Council is "launching a boycott of Israeli books" and favourably quoted the Israeli Embassy's Amir Oftek, who compared the Council to Joseph Goebbels burning books by Jewish authors.

Under the heading "Scottish Council Launches Ban on Israeli Books", one Israeli website called for an email campaign against "the latest sick chapter in the BDS campaign".  The Jerusalem Post told Israeli readers three days later that the censorship wave had spread across the whole of Scotland, in an article headlined, "Israeli book ban may be imposed in Scottish libraries". 

Not to be left behind in the frenzy, the Israeli YNet News Service claimed that even Scottish bookshops were being subject to the censorship, since "several districts in southwest Scotland expands boycott on Israeli products, bar stores from carrying English translations of Israeli books"(sic).  Israeli Ambassador Prosor expressed official Israeli fears that the cultural level in Scotland, a country which has had relatively high levels of literacy since the Protestant Reformation, was such that a wave of book burning could erupt: "A place that boycotts books isn't far from a place that burns them".

A day earlier Jeffrey Goldberg had shared with the 400,000 readers of The Atlantic (aimed at 'thought leaders') his assessment that he detected "in Scotland, a hint of Goebbels".  The claims only became more and more bizarre, when the World Jewish Congress tapped into dark Jewish memories by claiming that the City Council of Scotland's third largest city, Dundee, planned to "place a special sticker on products that are made in Israel".  Building on this, European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor condemned Israeli products being "distinctively marked in Scotland. These acts are eerily reminiscent of darker times and perhaps there is a level of hatred that connects them".

After such cranking up of the Nazi theme by propagandists for Israel, came the insane emails, such as the one suggesting the Council might want to "appoint a guard to patrol around the library and his snarling trained Alsatian to sniff out any Jewish books written in Israel which may have slipped through the net and polluted the glorious and proud shelves of the Judenfrei library in West Dumbartonshire."

The only problem with the hysteria is that the entire story was a fabrication from start to finish – from the West Dunbartonshire Libraries' ban on authors to the Scottish-wide censoring of bookshops, to Dundee City Council's plan to put special stickers on Israeli products.  It was a complete invention, whose aim was simply to distract attention away from Israel's ongoing crimes in Palestine and to smear and intimidate those decent men and women who voted to support Palestine against the Israeli crimes.

During the Israeli mass killings of Operation Cast Lead, West Dunbartonshire Council passed a motion to support the appeal from Palestinian civil society for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel, and institutions supporting that state, until Israel respects all its obligations under international law.   All Israeli companies fall within the scope of BDS.  Individual Israelis do not.  That is why Israeli publishing companies are included in the boycott.  West Dunbartonshire Council's statement can be read here.

The hysteria ratcheted up with each new invention was phoney.  A pity none of the 'journalists' took the trouble to check the catalogue of the well-run libraries of West Dunbartonshire to see the range of books by Israeli authors on the shelves.

Israeli Ambassador Prosor knows a thing or two about book burning.  He still defends the bombing and burning of the library of the Al Aqsa University in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, as do Israeli authors such as Amos Oz, whose books will sit unmolested on the library shelves in West Dunbartonshire.

The barbarians are accusing those who take a stand for human rights of censorship. Those whom the UN's Goldstone Report accuses of war crimes and crimes against humanity are lashing out at those who stand up to power and defend justice.

Which side are you on?

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
24 May 2011

E-mail West Dunbartonshire Councillors to express your support:

OPEN LETTER

24 May 2011

"We applaud West Dunbartonshire Council's principled decision, taken during the Israeli massacres of Operation Cast Lead, to support the Palestinian appeal for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions).

Attempts to portray this position as a 'boycott of Israeli books' fits with well-tried Israeli Government campaigning to re-focus discussion away from Israel's actions.  Books by UK-published Israeli authors are in no danger of being removed from the library shelves of West Dunbartonshire; forced removal from their homes, however, is a constant peril for many Palestinians as part of Israel's racist policy of dispossession of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian boycott includes Israel institutions linked to the state as well as Israeli companies.  Publishing companies are not exempt and are already being boycotted around the world, including Scotland.  Iain Banks also responded ethically to Operation Cast Lead:

"I've told my agent to turn down any further book translation deals with Israeli publishers. I would urge all writers, artists and others in the creative arts, as well as those academics engaging in joint educational projects with Israeli institutions, to consider doing everything they can to convince Israel of its moral degradation and ethical isolation, preferably by simply having nothing more to do with this outlaw state."

We reject the Israeli Embassy's sinister attempts to conflate active opposition to Israeli crimes with hostility to Jews.  We concur with Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond that the Scottish Jewish Community should not "be judged or affected by the policies of Israel.  The Jewish community is not liable for those policies.  It is possible to be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic."

If Israel wants to end the growing campaign of BDS it should end its military occupation and settlement building, cease bulldozing Palestinian homes and end its practice of throwing families onto the street to reduce the Palestinian Arab population, and respect its other obligations under international law.

We urge councils world-wide to follow the example of West Dunbartonshire in Scotland, and a growing number elsewhere, and discuss how to respond positively to the appeal from the Palestinian people for solidarity, above all in the form of a commitment to BDS."

Signed:
Omar Barghouti, author of Boycott, Divestment Sanctions: the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights
Lenni Brenner, author of Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, etc.
Jimmy Powdrell Campbell, The Scottish Crown Jewels and the Ministers Wife, etc.
Neil Davidson, author of The Origins of Scottish Nationhood, etc.
Raymond Deane, composer and author of Death of a Medium
Naomi Foyle, author of The Night Pavilion, etc.
Anthony Glavin, author of Nighthawk Ally, etc.
Shir Hever, author of The Political Economy of Israel's Occupation, etc.
Ronnie Kasrils, former Minister in South African Government and author of Armed and Dangerous; My Undercover Struggle against Apartheid.
Moshe Machover, author of A Course in Mathematical Logic
Mike Marqusee, author of Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, etc.
China Mieville, author of Perdido Street Station, etc.
Hilary Rose, author of Alas, Poor Darwin, etc.
Seni Seneviratne, author of Wild Cinnamon and Winter Skin
Stanley Walinets, author of 100 Years of Mickleton, etc.
Rich Wiles, author of Behind the Wall
Marion Woolfson, Hon. President, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, author of Prophets in Babylon: Jews in the Arab World

Prof. Haider Eid, Gaza
Mick Napier, Chair, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Boycott From Within - Palestinians, Jews, citizens of Israel, supporting the Palestinian call for a BDS campaign against Israel
J-BIG (Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods)

Add your name to the open letter:

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