UK Government must explain state handouts to arms dealers

The fact that Scottish Enterprise appears to be involved in funding firms such as Leonardo and Raytheon that contribute to making arms that are exported to Israel should surely be investigated by the Scottish Government and, if accurate, ceased as soon as is possible.

The First Minister and her government cannot possibly claim any moral high ground in their criticism of the state of Israel’s aggression towards the people of Palestine if a public body under their jurisdiction has handed out grants of nearly £10 million to arms manufacturers that deal directly with the Israeli government and other countries involved in disproportionate attacks on civilian populations such as Saudi Arabia.

Mr Briggs’ excellent article states that Scottish Enterprise profess that they make ethical checks before awarding grants to companies. I would respectfully suggest that these checks may have to be urgently reviewed.

As the great Bob Dylan celebrates his 80th birthday it is an apposite time to recall his classic anti-war song Masters of War that he penned in 1963. The lyrics reveal an angry young Dylan who believes that those who provide the arsenal of weapons for disputes like the present one in Palestine have abrogated their moral responsibility for the carnage that they sponsor as they remorselessly reap the rewards of the sale of arms, indifferent to the human consequences.

Any Scottish or UK governmental support for these arms companies should cease in the idealistic but surely not hopeless search for an ethical base to our foreign policy.

Failure to strive towards this goal and allow the promotion of destruction in Palestine to continue unabated would be complicit,callous and unacceptable. Should that be the case then we must return to the anger and human outrage embedded in the lyrics of Masters of War.

“Even Jesus would never forgive what you do.”

Owen Kelly
Stirling

AS always, the Sunday National readers’ letters, like the rest of the week, compete ably with the regular columnists, showing the quality of its readership. Contrast The National’s front page headlines with the hysterical, bigoted, anti-Scottish and blatantly inaccurate antidemocratic bias of the English-owned tabloids and broadsheets.

Like many other regular contributors, Owen Kelly of Stirlingshire can always be relied upon for a good insight. He pointed out the right-wing Tory bias of the hated (in Scotland) M Thatcher, who “famously branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist whilst refusing to impose UK economic sanctions on South Africa”.

So true, yet, oddly enough she did say that he should be released anyway. Unlike right-wing imposter “socialist” Kneel Kinnockio, who said he should not be released until he renounced terrorism. Not a word about his circumstances and the gross state terrorism against black people by the right-wing apartheid state.

Elsewhere, a reader pointed to Tory support by Jackson Carlow and North British Tories for the blatant discrimination by Israeli settlers against the indigenous Palestinian people. Again, it should be reminded that it was Viscount Earl Atlee who presided over the partition of India and Palestine. Palestine, which had been promised to the Jews and the Arabs, was partitioned into the Zionist State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Labour’s great white hope, Jeremiah Corbyn, failed grossly to point out the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism. The Arabs just happened to be more Semitic than the Israelis, who consisted largely of European Jews fleeing not only the horrors of Nazism, but centuries of European oppression.

Edward Plantagenet was able to borrow 10 times the national income from Jewish merchants, because of the Christian laws of usury, to conquer Wales. He soon ratted on the deal, scapegoating the Jewish population in England with lies and scare stories. He made them wear yellow patches and even burned 400 alive who were seeking sanctuary in a church in York. He also created his own holocaust by deporting them to mainland Europe. Some of his ships’ captains allowed their refugees to exercise on sandbars, leaving them to drown on the incoming tides. Why, oh why, with such a discriminatory and acknowledged persecuted history should they wish to behave similarly with expansionist policies to the Palestinians and even Arabic Jews?

Mr Corbyn, Unionist and Trident voter, whose aspirational reforms were not even a patch on the Scottish Government’s actual reforms, preferred to speak to the DUP rather than the SNP. Remember, Labour supported dividing the nine-county Ulster Irish province into a six-county occupied British state in 1922. Like their Tory Westminster chums, they also have a history of creating, supporting and deciding borders around the globe, to mention a few others such as Korea and Vietnam.

Reader Edward Andrews also covered Britain’s attitude to Northern Ireland, or more specifically the Scottish Government’s. Edward is an Ulster-born Presbyterian minister, educated in Dublin, supportive of a non-sectarian United Ireland and Scottish independence. He, like many other readers, is worth listening to.

The case against sectarianism in the Bible Belt of Scotland was best discussed by National readers since the latest anti-Popery demonstration in George Square, all in the name of sport. Rangers management was allowed the same daft management public statements, as always: “It wuz a minority of hooligans disguised as Rangers fans (in expensive merchandise) who gave Rangers a bad name”.

Donald Anderson
Glasgow

FURTHER to David Pratt’s excellent article on 13 May, I read the Human Rights Watch (HRW) 27 April 2021 Report: A Threshold Crossed, Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.

In March 2021, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of Prosecutor announced the opening of a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine, following the ICC’s ruling in February 2021 that it has jurisdiction over serious international crimes committed in the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), including East Jerusalem, which would include the Crimes Against Humanity of Apartheid or Persecution committed in that territory.

For the avoidance of doubt, the HRW Report states, “the Crime of Apartheid under the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute consists of three primary elements:

1. An intent to maintain a system of domination by one racial group over another;

2. Systematic oppression by one racial group over another; and

3. One or more inhumane acts, as defined, carried out in a widespread or systematic basis pursuant to these policies.

The Report concludes, On the basis of its research, HRW concludes that the Israeli Government has demonstrated an intent to maintain domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the OPT. In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, that intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of the Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them.

When these three elements occur together, they amount to the Crime of Apartheid.

Yet neither the British nor Scottish Governments have voiced their Outrage, and the SNP are so scared of being accused of Antisemitism that they ignore these Crimes against Humanity.

I was born in 1940 on the same day as the death of Neville Chamberlain, who after his meeting with Hitler, promised, Peace in our Time – Aye, Right as we say in Scotland AND WE ARE DOING IT AGAIN.

Donald Scott
Edinburgh

IN the space of two days we saw the best of Glasgow and the worst of Glasgow. Some might see the best in a peaceful, sober, dignified and compassionate community protest against the state’s intervention to deprive two citizens of their freedom. They might also see the worst, two days later, in a rowdy, drunken and violent explosion of rebellion by angry people supposedly celebrating their favourite team’s sporting success.

On the other hand, for the Home secretary, the best and worst types are reversed. The Kenmure Street community was called a mob because it challenged Westminster. Such behaviour, Ms Patel told us, will not be tolerated. The George Square “celebration” was ignored, perhaps because it can be said to demonstrate why the Scots (and Irish) still need to be governed by Westminster more than 300 years after the bloody state-sponsored battles that have never been forgotten.

Some parts of Scotland and Ireland suffer, not from sectarianism but from the poison of extreme unionist imperialism which seeks to suppress the rebellious Celts under London rule.Time for Christians to speak out and say, -“this has nothing to do with our faith”.

However it has everything to do with the divide and rule policy of the Palace of Westminster, which has been applied throughout the former British Empire.

C Walker
via email

ON reading Saturday’s long letter by John Hamilton and Ian Forbes I was struck by the openness and detail of the subject ref., INDEPENDENCE. And how we are treated.

I have pondered all day thinking of these letters and have came up with the idea that if these letters were to be pasted up on every billboard in Scotland it would convey the truth to those swithering on the subject of independence and could educate all those who voted Tory.

It is only an idea, why do we not as avid readers of the National club together and purchase a full page advert in all of the Scottish editions of the TORY nationals and publish these two letters it could change quite a few minds.

Mike Drummond
Oban

I HAVE been trying to purchase a pair of mid-weight hiking boots in a size 11.5 wide fit.

The first astonishing thing is that there is not a seller in the whole of Scotland who can supply me with what I need.

I discovered a Scandinavian store which had exactly what I was looking for at (what I thought to be) the great price of £138.01.

I put in my order only to discover the Brexit effect.

The store was very happy to send me the boots but pointed out that they would be held in transit until I paid the VAT and customs duty. That was a total of an extra £71.46 because of Brexit, an increase that I am not willing to pay.

No wonder UK businesses are struggling and a great many going under because of Brexit.

Everything about Brexit is an unmitigated disaster.

Harry Key
Largoward