Scotland distancing itself from Zionism

Sun Aug 12, 2012 3:42PM 

 

Interview with Mick Napier, Don’t Dance with Israeli Apartheid campaign, Scotland.

The Church of Scotland, Church of Nation Committee is very interesting – recently they aroused the ire of the Zionists by saying they were coming off the fence and that they were no longer really interested in the Israeli version of events because it was quite clear that what was happening was a grotesque crime against the people of Palestine…"

The Protestant church in Scotland and the Trades Union Congress are part of a growing trend to withdraw from Zionist interests in Scotland.

Press TV in its program The Real Deal with George Galloway has interviewed Mick Napier of the Don’t Dance with Israeli Apartheid Campaign in Scotland about the Scots coming ‘off the fence’ as he puts it from entertaining Zionist interests and Israeli version of events. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: My next guest has a surprise in store for the 40 ministers of culture who are due to descend on Edinburgh tomorrow for no better reason than it’s Edinburgh Festival - it is the end of what was called the Cultural Olympics and it’s a right good jolly, a right good party I can tell you for the 40 involved.

Mick Napier, you will be at the door of the Scottish Parliament to greet these ministers, but is it exactly a welcome that you’ve got in mind?

Napier: In 15 minutes the [ministers of] culture from around the world are gathering there as you said for a [party] for a couple of days. Quite astonishingly and I really don’t understand why, perhaps you can find out… the Israeli minister of culture who normally would be beating a path to the door of this kind of thing… you can’t keep him out of Eurasia or the Eurovision song contest, ne won’t be there. And I must say we’re very, very surprised at that.

We will have an exhibition outside the parliament for the entire two days of the Summit about the Israeli culture i.e. the Israeli culture of murder, of apartheid, of building walls, of victimhood and of racism.

We’ll have actors, we will have visuals, we will be telling those ministers of culture that they should stop what they’re doing, which is to incorporate the Israeli-brand Israel campaign, which uses cultural figures to criticize… to stop providing them a platform because they’re giving them a platform in the Edinburgh International Festival because this is associated with the EIF.

And by the way the brand-Israel tour will be coming to Bradford, Leicester, Plymouth, and Birmingham and so on later this year.

Press TV: Well they better not come to Bradford, that would be a big mistake.

Napier: They’re coming… they’re coming in December, George.

Press TV: Well that will be a warm Christmas I can promise you.

Napier: Well, I can tell you that in cities across the UK, there are small groups and committees organizing to make sure that they get the welcome they deserve. But we’ll have the honor of welcoming them first at the very end of August here in Edinburgh and we hope that that will set the bar for the protests up and down the UK.

Press TV: Well I can think of no one better than you to set that bar. On the subject of culture Mick; Mitt Romney, that big plank of wood that hopes to be the president of the US - According to him the Israeli culture is not only a higher level than the culture of these Arabs and Muslims and Arab Christians for that matter were driven out of Palestine by Israel and its foundation - not only do they have a higher culture, but that’s the reason why they have continued to triumph over what he described as their enemies.

Napier: I mean it makes you gasp. Satire cannot stop the reality in the American presidential races. And what Romney said is so breathtaking - he’s a few miles from a wall where Palestinians are living in ghettos and prisons and subject to brutal military occupation, unable to move sometimes for more than a couple of miles up the road; unable to trade because the Israeli military smash their boxes of flowers or whatever under spurious security grounds.

And this character (Romney) says the reason for this really economic growth is not the billions being funneled there from Washington and the fantastic advantages conceited them by the EU, but that it’s a superior culture.

Whereas what we are trying to say outside the Culture Summit in Edinburgh, this is a culture that is very dark indeed. It’s a culture of hatred, racism and we’ll be revealing that culture to everyone passing by and going in and out.

Romney is of course a vicious racist. But it’s not just ugly, it’s bizarre as well, George.

Press TV: Indeed. Israel as you said is not going to turn up for this gig Monday. So you’ll have an open door to lobby the rest. What’s the attitude of the Scottish government to your campaigning?

Historically, the major Party now in Scotland, the Scottish National Party has been relatively sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, no?

Napier: That’s a very interesting question. We have spoken to very senior figures in the Scottish government a couple of years ago and we asked for an assurance that the Israeli ambassador would not be invited to the parliament and they refused to make that statement publicly, but we were assured that they would not be welcomed.

Can I just tell your listeners and readers, some of your viewers that during the Operation Cast Lead - I mean it didn’t amount too much because the Egyptian dictatorship was still ‘walling in’ the people of Gaza - but during the Operation Cast Lead we approached sympathetic figures in the Scottish government and they issued a statement saying that Scottish hospitals would be opened to the casualties of the Operation Cast Lead. None got through, but it was an important symbolic act.

Press TV: How stands the movement in solidarity with the Palestinians in Scotland? I’m very rarely in Scotland now, but from time to time I see a protest here, a protest there against the orchestra, I saw at the football Palestinian flags being raised; people attempting to raise the cause of Palestine. What kind of shape would you say Palestine’s solidarity work is in Scotland?

Napier: I think… we’re not lucky here, but the harder we work the luckier we get, but the Scottish TUC has committed to a general across-the-board boycott of Israel.

Press TV: That’s the Trade Union Congress, that’s the Organization of Labor.

Napier: Yes, representing 600,000 organized workers across Scotland. The Church of Scotland, Church of Nation Committee was very interesting - recently they aroused the ire of the Zionists by saying that they were coming off the fence but they were no longer really interested in the Israeli version of events because it was quite clear that what was happening was a grotesque crime against the people of Palestine…

Press TV: Before you go on to that Mick, that’s a very significant piece of news you’ve just given me because everywhere else in the world, the Protestant churches are as close as can be with the Zionist version of history and in support of Israel.

And you’re saying that the Scottish Protestant church has actually now made a decisive turn against Zionist policy in the region?

Napier: The main committee of the church is the Church of Nation Committee and the chairman of that, Ian Galloway, you probably know him George...

Press TV: No relation, he’s the wrong religion so he couldn’t be a relation of mine, but anyway that’s good to hear, another Galloway in the field… go on…

Napier: Ian Galloway was rightly quoted as saying that they weren’t that interested in the Israeli version of events and I can understand that because every Israeli or every Zionist who speaks, they all seem to be the same person, it’s just an endless repetition of the same half a dozen points.

So yes, they have indeed a search for balance. I have to say there is still a long way to go, but I would say the general picture in Scotland is that we are knocking at open doors all the time and the only thing holding us back is our own energy and creativity - and that’s church, trade unions and other institutions as well.

I mean very small, but very influential Iona community has just come out openly against the Jewish National Fund and supports a campaign that I’m involved with called ‘Stop the GNF’ - the GNF being a racist charity in Britain, but a fundamental prop of the Israeli apartheid system, which prevents Arabs, Palestinians and Arabs from living on land, which has been exclusively reserved for Jewish residents.

So, people are coming off the fence. I think that it’s fantastically significant what our ambassador to Israel recently said, Mr. Gould - a very dedicated support of Israel - and he warned the Israelis last week that they were in trouble.

That the center ground in British politics, not the completely committed to human rights elements like yourself or in a junior way, myself… but he said the ‘center ground of British politics’ - and you might think they’re amorphous cowardly mass, but he says he thinks that they are beginning to move against the Israelis.

Press TV: Well indeed. But they didn’t move without anyone pushing them. And you have been for many decades as I know personally one of the best pushers of the Palestinian cause and the best pushers against Israel’s crimes. Good luck with your protests.

 

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