It was pleasure once again to welcome Israel’s Ambassador to our United Kingdom back to Scotland.
Ambassador Regev is a hugely impressive figure. It was a real privilege to invite him to our Scottish Parliament last year for the 69th
Independence Day celebrations and to spend several hours with him over dinner just recently discussing the big issues affecting Israel, anti-Semitism and other matters of importance to the good people of Eastwood.
Israel is speaking to more Arab countries than ever before. In shared concerns about ISIS and other international terrorist threats, these countries are coming together in a way which perhaps would have been unimaginable 10 or 20 years ago.
I wish these conversations every success as they are in all of our interests.
The Scottish Parliament since its inception created for itself a moniker of being anti-Israel and many in the Scottish Jewish community felt threatened and worried by this narrow world view.
After all, the Parliament and its MSPs did table the largest number of motions critical of democratic Israel in all of Europe.
Thankfully, this is changing, in part thanks to the Cross Party Group on Building Bridges with Israel which I helped start. I am pleased one of the very first proposals we championed – direct flights from Scotland to Israel – is now to be started on a trial basis. These will start on June 13.
Israir will begin flying direct from Edinburgh to Tel Aviv, allowing Scots to experience winter sun and the Israeli culture as never before. It will also be a boon for Scotland’s Jewish community who currently can only fly direct from London to Israel.
I shall be writing to Visit Scotland to ensure that we support this route and grow our Scottish business with Israel, especially ahead of any Brexit trade deal brokered between the UK and Israel.
I used to believe that anti-Semitism was a stain of the past, something which was confined to the knuckle-draggers and Nazis we beat back in 1945.
Sadly, I have never been so wrong. The rise of casual anti-Semitism, amongst not only the far right but the far left, is appalling in that it tries to hide in plain sight behind criticism of Israel.
This criticism of Israel is always coloured by its singular focus on Israel. If you treat democratic Israel, with its thriving Christian and Muslim population, in a manner which you do not apply to its murderous neighbours, then you are anti-Semite. Plain and simply.
We politicians must rise to the challenge of these threats. They are the same threats which Catholics faced, the same threats which our Muslim neighbours face and now our Jewish community again faces simply because of their creed.
It used to be that if people were not interested in politics then they may be ill informed of current events but they were never misinformed. This misinformation now lends itself to Jew hatred.
We must all act or be condemned by our silence, as so many were 70 years ago.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article