By IRNA,
London : Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond is being urged to intervene and cancel a trade mission to Israel that will bring “shame” on the country.
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) warned that the trade visit falls during the first anniversary of Israel’s war of aggression in Gaza and “will only serve to reward Israel for their continuing violations of Palestinian human rights and international law.”
“The Scottish Government cancelled this same trade mission to Israel in 2009, quite rightly, as it would have been deeply insensitive and offensive not to have done so in the wake of Israel’s attack on the people of Gaza,” the SPSC said in a letter to Salmond.
“The situation has not changed; Gazans continue to live in the rubble of their homes and for us to have Scotland associated in any way with the state of Israel would be deeply unpopular and unethical,” it said in a copy of the emailed letter, obtained by IRNA.
A delegation from Scottish Development International (SDI) is due to arrive in Tel Aviv on Sunday as part of a five-day trip, organised with UK Trade and Investment, the British government’s trade arm.
Scottish Friends of Palestine (SFP) also challenged the devolved Scottish nationalist government why the SDI had agreed to join the trade mission given its previous supportive positions towards the Palestinian people.
“Why is the Scottish government so keen to establish business relations with a racist state? Would you, Mr Salmond, have traded with apartheid South Africa?” SFP secretary Hugh Humphries asked.
“Scotland has no affinity with a state which seeks to perpetuate a permanent state of war to serve its own ends,” Humphries said in a separate letter to Scotland’s First Minister.