A Z Word in Scotland ... defending Jeremy Corbyn

Gaza-born, LSE-educated economist Dr Husam Zomlot is officially described on his Twitter page as "Ambassador, Head of Palestinian Mission to the UK, former Head of PLO General Delegation to the US, Strategic Affairs Advisor to President of Palestine".  If his name seems vaguely familiar, that may be because in 2014 he clarified remarks of his that led to the accusation that he is a Holocaust denier.  Or it may be because in September last year he was expelled from the United States by the Trump administration when the Palestinian mission in that country was closed down.

Image: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

In the month following that expulsion, he became head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK. To quote a press release,   

"HE Ambassador Husam Zomlot presented his credentials as head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK to The Rt Hon Alistair Burt, Minister of State for the Middle East, yesterday. Ambassador Zomlot was received by Mr. Alistair Burt at the Foreign Office.

Dr. Zomlot presented a letter to the Foreign Secretary, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt, from the Palestinian Foreign Minister Dr. Riyad al-Maliki. Mr Alistair Burt similarly presented a letter to Dr. Zomlot in which the British government welcomed him as head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK and expressed the desire of the UK government to strengthen cooperation with Palestine and deepen the unique and historic relationship between the British and the Palestinian people.

The letter emphasised the British government’s full commitment to achieving a two-state solution through the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. The letter also stated that the UK government looked forward to a constructive relationship between the British Foreign Office and the Palestinian Mission to the UK.

For his part, Dr. Zomlot expressed the hope that the directive of President Mahmoud Abbas to upgrade the relationship between the two countries was achieved at all levels. Dr. Zomlot added that he highly appreciated the very warm and senior reception at ministerial level from the UK government and vowed to continue the work of his predecessors in advancing British-Palestinian relations, particularly at this critical juncture for both Palestine and the UK."

And this month Dr Zomlot has been wowing the Scots, by the look of things.

He was warmly welcomed to the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.

And by Eve Bolander, the Lord Provost of Glasgow:

And, as reported here, he

'was given a VIP tour of Celtic Park as he thanked Hoops fans for their incredible crowdfunding efforts three years ago.

Mr [sic]Husam Zomlot touched down in Scotland this week for the first time since taking his new role as Palestine's head of mission to the UK.

In 2016, the Scottish champions were fined £8,000 for a huge pro-Palestine fan demonstration against Israeli outfit Hapoel Beer Sheva.

But the charge was dwarfed by the £176,000 raised online for Middle East charities in a bid by fans to match what they thought would be a far harder hit.

And Mr Zomlot paid homage to the extraordinary sum raised by thanking the club and its supporters today during a trip to the stadium....

The Celtic fans' campaign was backed by Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters in 2016, who played a montage of pictures of the Green Brigade waving Palestinian flags during one of his packed out concerts.

The music icon said at the time: "Thousands of Celtic supporters turned up, they carried Palestinian flags and banners.UEFA, in its incredible imbecility decided to fine Celtic for that display of inappropriate images and banners. So the supporters banded together, great Glaswegians that they are, and said, ‘We’re not having that’. They started a fund that was called ‘match the fine’ and they distributed it to Palestinian charities. Good on you Celtic supporters, I’m an Arsenal supporter myself, but in this particular instance I’m with you all the way.”...'

While in Dundee, trades unionists breakfasted with him:

Yes, that looks suspiciciously like Dr Zomlot's old friend Corbyn, in the picture below!  He was in Dundee for the Labour Party's Scottish Conference.

 And at a fringe meeting of the party chaired by Pauline McNeill MSP, Dr Zomlot received a standing ovation after delivering a speech in which he did his best to exculpate Corbyn from the stain of antisemitism:

As reported here,

'Jeremy Corbyn does not have a "shred or ounce or iota of hate" in his heart, Palestine's chief diplomat has insisted.

Dr Husam Zomlot launched a heartfelt defence of the Labour leader as his party continues to be engulfed in rows over anti-Semitism.

Speaking at a fringe meeting during the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee, Mr Zomlot said he first met Mr Corbyn 20 years ago and described him as "dignified but modest man".

He said: "Any cause that has to do with the rights of people, with equality, with fighting racism and hatred – Jeremy Corbyn is there, under the rain, under the most severe circumstances.

"You want to tell me that person has hate in his heart? No.

"That's the person I know for a long period of time."

....

His comments came as Labour peers wrote an open letter to Mr Corbyn describing his party's handling of anti-Semitism complaints as an "embarrassing mess".

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission is considering launching a formal investigation into whether Labour has "unlawfully discriminated" against Jewish people.

....

He said he sensed "some hesitation today among our friends, who worry that their support for Palestinian rights will be misconstructed".

Quoting US Senator Bernie Sanders, he said anti-Semitism "is being used to stifle debate about Israel".

But he added: "Let me be clear here: anti-Semitism is real. It is absolutely real. And like all forms of bigotry and racism, it is abhorrent.

"There is no 'but' here. There is absolutely no 'but' here. It is real and it must be fought."

He added: "There is no contradiction in fighting anti-Semitism and also fighting for the Palestinian cause. It is the same struggle."...'

Ah, but are we comparing like with like, MsMcneill?

Like Melanie Phillips, many hardly think so.
 
Meanwhile, a BDS battlecry from Scottish PSC chief Mick Napier

And across the Irish Sea ...

As BDS Gains Ground in the Highlands, Scottish PSC Chief Slams "Scottish Zionist Leaders"

Yesterday, at a full meeting, members of Scotland's Highland Regional Council voted to condemn

“the Government of Israel for its continuing illegal occupation of Palestine’s East Jerusalem and the West Bank and for its continuing illegal blockade of Gaza”

and welcomed

“the decision of the United Nations on 29 November 2012 to grant ‘non-member observer State’ to Palestine.”

Exults Mr Mick Napier, chief of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

' This decision of the Council provides a basis for current work across the region to extend the BDS campaign....

Highland Regional Council covers over a third of the Scottish mainland and is the seventh out of thirty two Scottish councils population size.

The Highland Council vote took place without any preparatory work beforehand and thus casts a very bright light on the current state of British opinion at local government level. Zionists are acutely aware of the pariah status of Israel in popular opinion across the world and throughout the UK. How much longer will Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and the Charities Commission be able to protect the apartheid state from popular opinion as Israel crosses red line after line of sustained criminality?'

And he claims:

'Scottish Zionist leaders reacted to the impending vote in their usual irresponsible and reckless manner, defending Israeli crime by manipulating the fears of Scottish Jews. Three days before the vote, Scottish Council of Jewish Communities [SCoJeC]spokesperson Linda Martin warned darkly in the local press of possible physical attacks on Jews if Israel was criticised.

Ms Martin claimed somewhat disingenuously that “The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities has no collective view on Israeli policies.” Their claimed neutrality towards Israel’s crimes is manifestly untrue, however, since SCoJeC’s leaders never criticise any Israeli massacre and miss no opportunity to smear criticism of Israel with wholly fabricated claims of anti-semitism. These antics have laid SCoJeC’s leaders open to severe criticism from within the Scottish Jewish community.

Ms Martin is reckless: she and SCoJeC claims to be “concerned at recent research findings that reveal verbal and sometimes physical attacks on Jewish people in Scotland because of their perceived identification with Israel”. Such efforts to implicate the Scottish Jewish community in the crimes of the state of Israel have been vigorously repudiated by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. She also claims that “disproportionate criticism levied at Israel by some politicians makes people feel alienated and vulnerable.” There is, however, no reputable research in the public domain that Scottish Jews are “physically...attacked because of their perceived identification with Israel”. Perhaps Ms Martin can point to some, bearing in mind that Zionists have a long record of exaggerating and welcoming real anti-semitism to support their efforts to persuade Jews to emigrate to Israel/Palestine. Political Zionists, open supporters of Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing, also whinge loudly when they come in for the severe criticism their racist and violent policies deserve.'

I think Mr Napier must be unaware of the sentiments expressed by some anti-Israel elements in Scotland, as seen in the following photos.  If he knew about them, he would surely empathise with the fears of Scottish Jews.

A Wee Dram O' A Bluid Libel? A BDS Beastie's Tale Of Zionist Razor Blades

In a recent welcome article deploring "the bonds of convenience growing between elements of the Left and anti-Semitism," an Australian columnist noted:

'A basic grasp of history shows us the boycotting of businesses is a longstanding tactic in the campaign of hate against the Jewish people.

Boycotts of Jewish merchants were practised in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire and later across eastern Europe, especially in Romania, Poland and Russia where anti-Jewish activism was serious enough to bequeath us the word pogrom. In 1922, the Fifth Palestine Arab Congress called for a boycott of all Jewish businesses. In 1943, the Arab League banned the purchase of "products of Jewish industry".

The BDS presents itself as a reaction to the power of the state of Israel. In reality it is the most recent name for a centuries-old economic persecution of Jews for having the temerity to become educated and entrepreneurial despite their exclusion from many occupations, geographies and institutions."

She concluded:

"Stand with those who educate women, stand with those who let gays serve openly in the military, stand with those who allow free speech and political activism.

Stand, in short, with the Jewish people and their state of Israel."

Back at the time of Operation Cast Lead, the left-dominated council of Scotland's West Dunbartonshire (population 90, 600) decided to put the wind up the Zionist Entity for having the gall to defend itself, resolving to boycott "all Israeli goods":

".... Officers should immediately cease the purchase of any goods we currently source which were made or grown in Israel. Officers should also ensure we procure no new goods or produce from Israel until this boycott is formally lifted by the council."

Recently, as seen here, at the launch of this pro-BDS anthology by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire councillor and BDS heavy Jim Bollan (who's on record as describing Hamas as "freedom fighters"), indulged in claptrap about "apartheid" and "racist" Israel and the need to overthrow "the Israeli regime," spicing up the narrative with a tale of dark and dire deeds allegedly threatened in revenge for the boycott resolution (which was followed in 2010 by one calling upon other Scottish councils to follow suit):

"We also got a lot of vitriolic response from the Zionists across the world, particularly in America. We were getting threats for our lives, threats for our families' lives, "we know where you live", all this kind of stuff.... [W]e weren't going to be bullied, we weren't going to be threatened by these people who were phoning you at 2 o'clock in the morning and telling you that your granddaughter was in danger....  [The police] were explaining to us we need to check our mail, the mail would need to be sifted through the council before we got it because they had reports that the Zionists were posting these letters where, when you opened them up they had razor blades in them and they would have ripped your fingers ... That's how vicious they are."

  A wee dram of a blood libel there, it might seem.

More McMalevolence

More BDS huffery and puffery north of Hadrian's Wall, this time on 15 April with the passing of this motion by the Scottish Trades Union Congress:

'That this Congress notes that the ‘World Social Forum – Free Palestine’ agreed to make the next annual Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, April 17th 2013, a worldwide day of action against security company G4S. In Occupied Palestine, G4S is involved in human rights abuses and violations of international law through the services it provides to the Israeli Occupation Forces, including providing or operating:

equipment for Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza;

    security system of Ktziot prison, central control room of Megido prison, central control room for Ofer prison compound and security services to Damon prison, which are all facilities detaining Palestinian political prisoners;

    equipment for West Bank Israeli Police headquarters in the highly contested E1 area; and

    security services to businesses, including banks and supermarkets, in illegal West Bank settlements and in East Jerusalem.

Congress believes G4S’s activities in the Israeli Prison Service constitute a breach of international law, including Articles 49 and 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and that they are complicit in violations of the human rights of Palestinian prisoners, including children.

Congress notes that G4S in Norway was petitioned by trade unions and others, calling for it to cease activities complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and mistreatment of Palestinians.

Congress therefore:

demands that G4S withdraws forthwith from all activities that contribute to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and to its denial of human rights to Palestinians;

calls on the General Council and the trade union movement in Scotland to raise these points, through every possible channel, with G4S;

  resolves that until G4S concedes to these demands, it will be a target of the STUC’s policy of Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions;

 calls on the Scottish Government to cancel G4S’s new contract for tagging of offenders; and

 endorses the UK StopG4S Campaign.”'

 (From here)

Tartan Tiger: "Clackmannanshire Council Resolves To Resist ... Any Action That Gives Political Or Economic Support To The State Of Israel"

Following the ludicrous, shameful examples of its counterparts in West Dunbartonshire and Stirling, Clackmannanshire ("The Wee County"; its population is less than the seating capacity of Yankee Stadium) Council, lobbied by members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, has voted (14 March) to boycott Israel.
 
In the hyperbolic words attributed to the SPSC member who initiated the lobbying (and will no doubt now press for similar motions against Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Congo):

"We have a right to global peace, and the journey there will only be achieved by supporting human rights and the rule of law. If we continue to profit from those who perpetually flaunt these, then the future for all of us, and our children, is grim indeed."

The motion, introduced by Councillor Archie Drummond, a socialist elected as an Independent, was passed without opposition by a meeting of the full Council, with only three abstentions (one Labour, one SNP, and the sole Conservative).

"Clackmannanshire Council condemns the Government of Israel for its continuing illegal occupation of Palestine's East Jerusalem and the West Bank and for its continuing illegal blockade of Gaza.

Clackmannanshire Council welcomes the decision of the United Nations on 29 November 2012 to grant "non-member observer State" to Palestine.

However, for the people of Palestine, the suffering of the last 64 years continues as the Government of Israel continues to ignore and breach international law.

Just as individual sanctions against apartheid in South Africa led ultimately to its demise there, so individual and collection sanctions against the state of Israel will end apartheid and suffering in Palestine.

Clackmannanshire Council therefore resolves to resist, insofar as legislative considerations permit, any action that gives political or economic support to the State of Israel."  [Emphasis added]

Read more here

The mindset of many who seek to demonise the Zionist Entity and bring about its destruction can be seen in this foul ignorant comment on the website of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (to which I link above):

"In Israel we have echoes of the post Weimar Republic in Germany.There the nazis declared that Germany needed Liebensraum ie room to expand and this could be achieved by getting rid of the Untermensch and occupying stolen land."

The mindset of many who seek to demonise the Zionist Entity and bring about its destruction can also be seen in the following incident miles from old Caledonia.

It seems the slogan Am Yisrael Chai ("The People of Israel/Jewish People Live") is like a red rag to a bull for at least one of the BDSers at a demo in Oakland, California.

Here is footage of the demo (worth watching for the presence of the pro-Hamas International Solidarity Movement and for the very apt comments of the video maker on the sheer double standards and hypocrisy of those who accuse Israel of "apartheid" – such selectivity is also evident, of course, in the decisions of the Scottish councils referred to above).

And here's footage of a violent expletive-riddled assault by one of the Israel-haters on a young Jewish woman who had the temerity to chalk the Israel-affirming slogan on the ground.

Read more here
(Hat tip: reader Rita)