Scotland can boycott Israel without Westminster

The First Minister has rightly (and finally) called Israel’s onslaught in Gaza a genocide. I’m glad he’s done that, but he immediately followed it by claiming ‘I am trying to do everything I possibly can do to make sure that we apply the pressure’ on Israel.

That just isn’t true. The Scottish Government has taken no direct steps to put pressure on Israel. Today I wrote to John Swinney, outlining a package of measures to implement a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy using the tools already available to our devolved Government.

Here is that letter in full:

Dear First Minister,

I am writing following your welcome comments at the Edinburgh Festival, where you unequivocally stated that “there is a genocide in Palestine”. 

I am sure the people of Palestine will be glad to see another world leader state clearly that Israel is committing the crime of genocide.

However I cannot agree with one remark which you made on Saturday. You said that “I'm trying to do everything I possibly can do to make sure that we apply the pressure to do what should be done”. I am afraid that this is not true. 

Many of the relevant policy issues sit with Westminster, but not all. As we both know and have previously discussed, there is much more which the Scottish Government can be doing to put pressure on Israel to end its genocide in Palestine. 

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) campaign, led by Palestinian civil society, calls for supporters of Palestinian liberation to put their words into action by putting non-violent pressure on the individuals and corporations who support and enable Israel in its decades-long occupation of Palestine.

I am writing today to propose that the Scottish Government implements the BDS campaign in the areas under its responsibility as a matter of urgency, namely through the following actions:

• Boycott

  • Legislate to disapply s17(5) of the Local Government Act 1988 in Scotland, therefore allowing Scottish local authorities to account for non-commercial matters, like a company’s participation in the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, to be accounted for when contracts are awarded to companies. This could be achieved through amendment to the Community Wealth Building Bill.

  • Issue guidance to businesses in Scotland urging them to immediately cease trading with Israel, exactly as the Scottish Government did in relation to Russia in March 2022 

• Divest

  • End the granting of public money to the arms dealers who have supplied Israel as it carried out this genocide and all other companies directly complicit in the occupation

  • Propose to all public pension funds that they divest from companies complicit in Israel’s apartheid regime on the basis that the reputational and legal risk to these companies represents an unacceptable consequential risk to funds themselves and action can therefore be taken under their fiduciary duty to those whose pensions they hold

• Sanction

  • Impose financial sanctions on complicit companies through the Scottish Government’s regulation-making power to impose surcharges on non-domestic rates

Companies complicit in the genocide can be identified via the list maintained by the United Nations Human Rights Council. This includes JCB, which operates at least 10 sites in Scotland. They have long supplied equipment for the construction of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a tactic condemned by the International Court of Justice as part of Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

These are just some of the concrete steps which your government can take to put pressure on Israel and its enablers. Cutting off economic and financial support via the BDS campaign is essential to ending the genocide. Its effectiveness as a strategy was proven beyond doubt by the campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

What is happening to the Palestinian people is one of the greatest crimes against humanity of our age. If the Scottish Government truly wants to do everything possible to end the suffering in Palestine, I urge you to back these proposals and officially adopt BDS as Scottish Government policy with immediate effect.

Regards,

Ross Greer
Scottish Greens

[Preview image by Brahim Guedich shared under Creative Commons license]