November Newsletter

Hello, and welcome to the November edition of our newsletter. Please share with anyone you think may be interested, and let us know your feedback. If you’re interested to get involved, contact us at aberdeen@scottishpsc.org.uk, and please visit our new website: www.spscaberdeen.org.  

In solidarity,
SPSC Aberdeen

Palestinian prisoners, administrative detention and Maher al Ahkras

Maher al-Akhras’s hunger strike lasted 103 days and brought him to the brink of death. A Palestinian from Silat a-Dhahr in the occupied West Bank, Maher was detained on July 27th by the Israeli military occupation and held - without charge, trial, or evidence presented – under ‘administrative detention’.

Denied his freedom, his rights, and his humanity, Maher’s hunger strike follows a strong tradition of resistance to incarceration and military occupation in Palestinian struggle. After more than three months of refusing food and medical treatment from the same state that denied him his liberty, Maher ended his strike on the 6th November having secured the suspension of his detention on the 23rd November.

Administrative detention is a procedure that Israel uses to hold prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial, claiming secret evidence that necessitates detention for ‘security’ purposes. This secret evidence is not made available to the detained person or their lawyer and the detention can be renewed for an unlimited time. The procedure was adapted from the exiting British colonial regime and adopted into Israeli law in 1948, and it has continued to be applied to Palestinians since.

Israel currently holds 355 Palestinians in administrative detention. B’tselem, the human rights organisation, has documented that there have consistently been between 150 and 1,000 Palestinians subjected to administrative detention from 2000 to 2020. Accurate total numbers are unavailable due to a lack of information provided by occupation forces.

In 1948, the United Nations agreed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundation of international human rights law. Israel’s policy of administrative detention clearly breaches both Article 3 – ‘Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person’ – and Article 9 – ‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile’.

The UK government is bound to act against states breaching international law and should be holding Israel to account. Instead, the UK government provides diplomatic support and trades weapons with the Israeli government.

As well as a comprehensive military embargo on Israel, the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanctions National Committee has called for companies profiting from the prison infrastructure and occupation to be targeted by boycott and divestment. These companies include Elbit Systems, who sell weapons used against Palestinians, and Hewlett Packard, who provide technology for Israel’s checkpoints and the apartheid system of identification checks. 

Scottish football must extend anti-racism action to Palestine

Scotland is of course delighted that our win against Israel left our men’s football team  “one game away” from the Euro finals. Despite a lacklustre game on 8th October, Scotland won the penalty shoot out.  Following our win against Serbia we are now in the Euro finals and a nation rightly celebrates!

What was less edifying in the Israel game was the pre-match coverage, which did not once mention the political situation whereby the government of Israel is occupying Palestinian land and oppressing the people of Palestine.

It seemed not to matter that the people in Gaza are living under siege with only a few hours of electricity every day and shortages of food, water and medicine. Or that between 500-700 Palestinian children between 12 and 17 are in Israeli military detention in direct contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Or that Israel continues to demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank with impunity. Or that according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, nearly 3,500 Palestinians have been killed in attacks by the Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza since 2009, when Netanyahu became the Prime Minister. Of these, 799 were children, and 342 women.

Surely somewhere in the pre-match narrative, some reference could have been made to this appalling state of affairs. After all, when interviewing the Deputy Israeli Ambassador to Scotland on Radio Scotland on the morning of the game, the interviewer managed to ask a question about antisemitism. If that was deemed relevant, as might indeed be considered legitimate, why not the deadly discrimination faced daily by the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government that she represents?

A petition to the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) Scotland, called on the organisation to issue a public message of support and solidarity with their fellow football players in Palestine. After all, along with match officials, Palestinian footballers face constant harassment and worse from the Israeli military. Sports events have been disrupted, travel for sport forbidden, stadiums bombed, sportspeople imprisoned and Palestinian football players have even been deliberately shot and disabled for life by Israeli soldiers, leaving them unable to play football again.

We heard nothing of this in the mainstream media though and sadly no statement has been issued by PFA Scotland. It seems it was enough to win the game.

We commend the way that footballers have rightly challenged racism through Show Racism the Red Flag and Black Lives Matter. This same solidarity needs to be shown to the people of Palestine. As Mandela said of South Africa, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

New Plant a Tree campaign and links with South West Bethlehem communities

In recent weeks we have been working with partners in Palestine, including Stop the Wall, to plan a new initiative using tree planting as political resistance.  The Plant a Tree project aims to build solidarity links between Aberdeen and the North East with communities threatened by land dispossession in South West Bethlehem.  The campaign will begin in December when we hope to start sharing the stories of the communities affected by illegal Israeli land grabs and destruction of trees.  More details will follow soon.  To get involved email aberdeen@scottishpsc.org.uk.

New branch website

You have likely received this newsletter via our branch new website.  Visit www.spscaberdeen.org to check it out, keep up-to-date with news and activities, or make a donation.  And let us know what you think of the new site and what would be helpful by leaving a comment or emailing us at aberdeen@scottishpsc.org.uk.

20 years of Scottish PSC

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign recently marked its 20th anniversary, and the organisation’s Chair, Eurig Scandrett, shared his reflections. 

I’ve been associated with SPSC for ten years, which is when I made my first visit to Palestine. SPSC organised a study tour of the Palestinian villages which the Jewish National Fund had ethnically cleansed in the Nakba and since, and meetings with refugees and activists in the resistance to colonisation. My respect for the organisation has continued since then and my involvement has increased. I’m delighted to be in the chair as we celebrate 20 years.

SPSC is its members and its activists. Some, like me, have come to SPSC lately and gradually. Others have spent time with the organisation and moved on to other campaigns and activities. A few were there at the start 20 years ago, and of course we remember those who are no longer with us. In the past year we have lost two committed comrades in Sam Macartney of UNISON Scotland’s international committee, and Reverend Peter Macdonald of the Church of Scotland and Iona Community. Sam and Peter’s participation illustrate the breadth of civil society that SPSC has engaged with and continues to influence.

This is part of what is impressive about SPSC. Whatever our size in members or activists, we have always punched above it. We are more than a single organisation, but a significant contributor to the wider social movement of solidarity with Palestine. We have sought to bring a clear analysis of the Zionist occupation of Palestinian land, of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, and the apartheid racism of the Israeli State. We have been led by and inspired by the Palestinian popular struggle that has been resisting Zionist settler colonisation for well over a century. We embraced BDS from the initial Palestinian call, and have developed new ways of being in solidarity. We have been fearless in speaking truth to power and in challenging apologists of Zionism and normalisers of the occupation. We have made mistakes and we are constantly learning from them.

One hundred years ago the British Mandate for Palestine was established, embedding the Balfour Declaration into Britain’s established colonial apparatus, to force Zionist settlement on Palestine. Starting with Arthur Balfour, Scots and Scotland have played their role in defending the indefensible in Palestine, complicit in the crimes of the colonisers, both British and Zionist. Palestinians have resisted this colonisation since its beginnings, and have found solidarity amongst people with diverse faiths, ethnicities and backgrounds, including Jews and Palestinian diaspora. SPSC has consistently rejected ethnic, religious or conflict-based interpretations of the relationship between the Israeli state and the Palestinians, their land and resources, and demanded that colonisation be understood politically. It is only by challenging power with a popular movement of Palestinian resistance and the international solidarity of ordinary people across civil society that the Zionist project will be defeated, and decolonise the relationship between all the people who live between the river and the sea.

Aberdeen SPSC – About Us

Aberdeen SPSC has been campaigning for justice for Palestine since 2010, primarily focused on joining the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.  Past activities have included campaigns against the likes of Wood Group, Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Barclays Banks, as well as organising solidarity delegations to Gaza and the West Bank. The branch is part of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. 

Best wishes,

The SPSC Aberdeen Team

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