Scottish branch of Stand Up to Racism ostracises pro-Israel groups
Announcement comes as Glasgow Friends of Israel say they have regularly experienced harassment on SUTR's annual marches
The “Stand Up to Racism” organisation in Scotland has announced two pro-Israel groups are unwelcome at its annual march, citing their “justifying and applauding the actions of the state of Israel”.
In a statement posted on Twitter, SUTR Scotland’s steering committee said that it “wishes to publicly clarify beyond any doubt that the Glasgow Friends of Israel and the COFIS [Confederation of Friends of Israel in Scotland] groups are NOT WELCOME at SUTR events.
“They have never been invited to any SUTR event, spoken as part of any SUTR platform, or been part of discussions with SUTR Scotland.”
Sammy Stein, chairman of Glasgow Friends of Israel, told Jewish News: “Stand Up to Racism are supposed to be an organisation that challenges all racism…We [Glasgow Friends of Israel] march in order to oppose racism in general and antisemitism in particular.
“We have a lot of local opposition…they call us Zionists – which we are – and call us racist”, he said, going on to describe how, by that rationale, “if you’re racist, you can’t participate in anti-racism.”
In its comments, SUTR cited the groups’ support for Israel, which is described as being “engaged in carrying out genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing”. They also claimed that the two group’s activities included “support for the far right, internationally and here in Scotland” – citing examples of Reform UK politicians visiting the weekly stall that Glasgow Friends of Israel runs in the city centre – and that the organisations had “joined the efforts by politicians to push the Islamophobic lie that the millions protesting in support of Palestine are ‘hate marchers’.”
Stein told Jewish News that while SUTR Scotland had not previously made such a public statement, regular efforts had been made at its previous annual marches to make GFoI and COFIS unwelcome.
“They’ve been very aggressive towards us – mainly the stewards. They wanted us to walk behind the stewards so as if to show we were not part of the march – we’ve always refused”, he said.
“I believe some of them are racists and that’s why they’re behaving the way they’re behaving.”
He pointed out that SUTR could not specifically ban the groups from a public march, which is why the group instead used the language of not being welcome – and he confirmed that despite the comments, Glasgow Friends of Israel would join the march again next year.
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