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Scotland is a safe haven for Jews and home of the kosher kilt

October 12, 2014 at 11:43 am

A few years ago Scotland was referred to as “enemy territory” by a visiting Israeli Ambassador because of the hostile reception he and other representatives of the Zionist state were guaranteed to receive whenever they stepped north of the border. Hence, while Tel Aviv watched keenly the progress of the nation’s recent bid for independence from the rest of the UK the Zionist machine used the historic occasion as an excuse to ratchet up fear within the Jewish community living in Scotland. One influential Israeli columnist even warned Scottish Jews to “pack their bags”, just in case.

Of course, this sort of scaremongering is based on the Zionist belief that Jews cannot live safely anywhere outside Israel and those who do so are inferior to those who emigrate there (olim) to take part in the Zionist project which is dispossessing the indigenous Palestinians.

Never ones to miss an opportunity, Zionist propagandists went into overdrive to peddle fear throughout Scotland’s small but vibrant Jewish community. Not only were Scottish Jews urged to vote No in the independence referendum, but they were also told to prepare to flee. This exposed the dark heart of Zionism, which had to try to spread unfounded fears among a perfectly happy section of the community in Scotland. So settled are the Jews there that Rabbi Mendel Jacobs, the only Scots-born Rabbi living in the country, even commissioned the first ever Jewish Tartan Tallis.

Jews have been an integral part of Scottish culture for centuries, with the first Jewish resident recorded in Edinburgh in 1691. Unlike their counterparts in England, Jews were never persecuted north of the border, which was free of pogroms, Holocausts or state-sponsored anti-Semitic laws. While England was torturing, persecuting, burning and exiling its Jews in the Middle Ages, Scotland provided a safe haven from the evils of European anti-Semitism, something that it still does to this day.

Despite this, the Zionists did their best to use the Scottish referendum as an excuse to make the Jewish community feel threatened and insecure. This was despicable and shows how the desperation to further populate the Zionist state is increasing as more Israelis join its now infamous “brain drain”.

Israel’s higher education system is deteriorating and well-educated Israelis are fleeing abroad, according to a report published by the Taub Centre for Social Policy Studies in Israel. This prompted Finance Minister Yair Lapid to berate his fellow citizens, who he accused of abandoning their homeland.

Indeed, not only is there concern over the growing “brain drain”, there is also alarm that more and more countries across the world are expressing their concerns over the Zionist project and the apartheid state it has created for Palestinians living there. While America and its closest allies in Europe continue to give their unconditional support to Tel Aviv, Scotland’s increasingly robust stance against Zionism is causing concern; the Scottish Parliament based in Edinburgh is free of the Friends of Israel and other Zionist lobby groups which occupy and influence the British government in Westminster.

Support for the Palestinian cause is given freely and sincerely by the Scottish government, the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Human Rights Commission. It is also home to the very active and combative Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (of which I am a member) which is on record for opposing “Jewish self-determination, as well as Catholic, Mormon, Muslim and Jehovah’s Witnesses self-determination”.

Mick Napier, a former chair of the group said: “We are happy to be hated by those who support the massacre and dispossession of Palestinians. Scottish PSC urges Scottish Jews to remain in Scotland as equal citizens in a generally tolerant society, rather than emigrate to apartheid Israel and support a state committing genocide against the native people of Palestine.

“We wish to alert all Scots to the sinister, never-ending effort by political Zionists to implicate Scottish Jews in the crimes of the state of Israel. Just as most British citizens felt the need to tell the world that the massacres and mayhem committed by Tony Blair (aided by Gordon Brown and Jim Murphy) were committed ‘not in our name’, a similar danger confronts those on whose behalf the Israeli State claims it carries out its barbarous acts.”

One of Israel’s most famous sons, Professor Shlomo Sand, has just written an autobiographical essay on Jewish identity in which he says: “I am aware of living in one of the most racist societies in the Western world. Racism is present to some degree everywhere, but in Israel it exists deep within the spirit of the laws. It is taught in schools and colleges, spread in the media, and above all and most dreadful, in Israel the racists do not know what they are doing and, because of this, feel in no way obliged to apologise. This absence of a need for self-justification has made Israel a particularly prized reference point for many movements of the far right throughout the world, movements whose past history of anti-Semitism is only too well known. To live in such a society has become increasingly intolerable to me…”

If that is the case, I am sure that Professor Sand would be made most welcome in Scotland, home of the kosher kilt, all-embracing hospitality and a nation where 45 per cent of the electorate still dream of independence, equality, justice and self-determination for all of its citizens.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.