FIRST LIST OF REASONS :
SPSC launched in Scotland the Palestinian call for boycott of Israel and has worked with some success to promote it. SPSC built support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel into a mainstream position in Scottish politics. We co-founded the broad-based Boycott Israel Network (BIN).
As a result pf this work,
- an Israeli diplomat complained: “Every appearance by an official Israeli representative in Scotland is like a visit to enemy territory.”
- According to the (admittedly idiots at) the Israel Information office in Scotland, SPSC “seems well-funded…its activist leaders are knowledgeable, expert in exploiting any situation for sniping at Israel…”
We are not ‘well-funded’!
SPSC consistently opposed the effort to conflate opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism. Successes here include:
- Scottish court ruled that opposition to Israel is not to be confused with anti-Semitism. This victory ended effort by Edinburgh PF to criminalise all Palestine solidarity.
- 6,000 books published by Zionist leaders of SCoJeC alleging SPSC was anti-Semitic had to be pulped following legal action.
Cultural boycott: SPSC
- organised vigorous protests against Israeli State-financed Batsheva dance troupe at the 2012 Edinburgh EIF and worked with partners to extend those protests UK-wide into every Batsheva performance, and even to Italy..
- successfully campaigned to get the Edinburgh International Film Festival to return sponsorship money from the Israeli Embassy in 2006 and again in 2009,
- protested performances inside and outside by ‘Distinguished IDF (Israeli Army) Musicians’ at the 2008 EIF. Similar protests of the Jerusalem Quartet followed elsewhere.
Economic boycott: SPSC
- initiated and maintained the boycott campaign against an Israeli settler company, Eden Springs, who complained to the Scottish Government they were “being targeted by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign [and] a wave of recent protests…is threatening the future of Eden Springs UK.”
- highlighted Veolia’s role in providing services to illegal Israeli settlements, leading to Leith Community Festival rejecting their sponsorship in 2010. SPSC obtained a strong legal opinion to neutralse the claim by Edinburgh City Council legal officials that Thatcher-era legislation made boycott activities illegal.. Veolia were silently dropped by Edinburgh City Council.
Countering pro-Zionist economic boycott in UK: SPSC campaigned against banks working to damage Palestine solidarity efforts.
- We campaigned successfully with Friends of Al Aqsa, a Muslim pro-Palestine campaign, to force a retreat by Royal Bank of Scotland from its threat to withdraw banking facilities from the organisation, and
- We flagged up and, with others across the UK, stopped Lloyds TSB’s threatened withdrawal of banking facilities from the charity Interpal, who send humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Sporting boycott: SPSC
- joined others in forcing the Israeli cricket team to withdraw from their Glasgow games in 2006
- protestedIsrael’s Under-21s football team in Hamilton when over 500 protesters ‘upset’ the off-duty soldiers managing, coaching playing for Israel
- vigorously protested the Israel v Scotland Women’s game at Tynecastle
Racist JNF (Jewish National Fund): SPSC
helped build large protests at every gala fundraising event of the JNF (Jewish National Fund) at the Glasgow Hilton. These events stopped after 2008. SPSC co-founded both the UK and International Stop the JNF Campaigns.
Legal fights: SPSC
faced legal attacks , successfully defying threats to sue from the Israeli-owned Caledonian Hilton, the racist JNF. The ‘SPSC 5’ saw off the effort by the Edinburgh Procurator Fiscal to effectively criminalise all Palestine solidarity as ‘racist’.
In other campaigns SPSC
- initiated and led the successful campaign to elect Israeli political prisoner Mordechai Vanunu as Rector of Glasgow University in 2004.
- secured the support of a majority of MSPs for a motion “expressing Scotland’s disgust at their [Palestinians’] treatment at the hands of the Israeli Government”.
supported protests against visits by Israeli diplomats to Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities
However…
The situation in Palestine continues to worsen, with continuing dispossession, mass imprisonment, house demolitions, illegal settlement building, burnings and killings by the Israeli State
British Government complicity with Israel is total and the Scottish Government has financed an Israeli settler company, Eden Springs, with £200,000 of taxpayers’ money.
SECOND LIST OF REASONS: (the bad news) SPSC remains too small to achieve our goals. We need your active support
- some of your energy, however much or little you can give, on a regular and sustainable basis.
- some of your intelligence to solve together some of the many problems and difficulties we face.
- your skills – don’t doubt that you have some and that we can benefit from them.
- a little of your money – we have no paid employees, we never have enough money to achieve all our aims.
I want to join Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
