SCOTTISH Tory MSP – and man with the permanent expression of someone who has just discovered that the Irn Bru can he's taken a swig of has been used as an ashtray – Stephen Kerr, isn't so happy about aid going to the desperate people of Gaza, and certainly not when it's Scottish Government aid.
Kerr, the sour milk of human kindness, took exception to the Scottish Government giving £250,000 in aid to UNRWA, the United Nations relief organisation who had employees accused by Israel of assisting Hamas in its attacks. Despite no substantive evidence being produced by Israel, the UK and a number of other countries suspended funding for the organisation.
The Israeli accusations came the day after the International Court of Justice in the Hague agreed to hear a case brought by South Africa alleging that the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. However, now the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said in a report that some UNRWA employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention have reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the October 7 attacks.
Several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and have claimed that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.
The report says that staff members had "been subject to threats and coercion by the Israeli authorities while in detention, and pressured to make false statements against the Agency, including that the Agency has affiliations with Hamas and that UNRWA staff members took part in the 7 October 2023 atrocities."
Kerr alleged that by authorising Scottish Government aid to UNRWA, First Minister Humza Yousaf, whose in-laws were trapped in Gaza at the time, had a "clear conflict of interest”.
It was reported in the Boris Johnson fanzine The Telegraph on Sunday that the First Minister was being accused of overriding officials' recommendations to give Unicef, a different UN agency, between £100,000 and £200,000.
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There was an implicit implication in the Telegraph report that the First Minister had overruled official advice in order to give funding to an organisation which Israel has accused of working closely with Hamas. In the report, Kerr said that the First Minister had some "serious explaining to do" and suggested he may have broken the ministerial code.
A furious First Minister took to Twitter to deny any conflict of interest and to accuse Kerr and the Telegraph of thinly veiled islamophobia and peddling far-right conspiracy theories.
Far from being the gotcha that Kerr was hoping for, it's now the Tory MSP who has some serious explaining to do.
SNP depute leader Keith Brown (above) has urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to step in to block Kerr from running as a candidate in the next General Election.
Brown said: "Look at the article, look at the consequences of the article, look at what Stephen Kerr’s done, look at him smirking on TV yesterday knowing exactly the reaction he was going to get in relation to this."
He added: "I don't think Stephen Kerr is fit to be a candidate at the Westminster election.
“The Prime Minister should condemn the article and make sure Stephen Kerr is not allowed to stand as a Westminster candidate.”
The National's fundraiser for Palestine
Meanwhile, the National's fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians has smashed a £50,000 milestone. Medical Aid for Palestinians is currently the only international aid organisation operating in the north of the devastated territory, where hospitals and other civilian infrastructure lie in ruins and desperate civilians cower in terror in the rubble of their city.
Stocks of food and essential medical supplies have run catastrophically low and innocent civilians, who have often fled several times, face the appalling choice of starvation and dying without medical attention, or trying to seek help and running the risk of coming under attack from Israeli forces bent on taking revenge for the slaughter of Israeli civilians in the Hamas attacks of 7 October.
The National's fundraiser will provide much needed cash to Medical Aid for Palestinians to help it carry out work the demand for which is now more urgent and vital than at any time in the past 50 years or more.
SNP MP Philippa Whitford, a surgeon specialising in the treatment of breast cancer who worked as a volunteer surgeon in Al Ahli hospital in Gaza during the first intifada – which took place between 1987 and 1993, has urged people to back the charity’s lifesaving work.
She said: "I have known MAP for over 30 years, having worked with them as a surgical volunteer in Al Ahli hospital in Gaza in 1991-92.
“At that time Gaza had Israeli settlements and IDF soldiers, but we mostly dealt with gunshot wounds not appalling blast injuries from the indiscriminate bombing which has already killed over 30,000 Palestinians – two-thirds of them women and children.
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“With well over 70,000 injured, few hospitals functioning and almost no medical supplies, I can barely imagine trying to function in the terrible conditions faced by medical colleagues in Gaza."
“Having again worked with MAP since 2016, to set up a Scottish-Palestinian breast cancer project, I know how committed the MAP staff in Gaza are."
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also urged people to support the fundraiser, saying: "The images from Gaza are simply unbearable. Hundreds of thousands of us are desperate to do anything we can to try and alleviate the appalling levels of human suffering. The National has my full support in launching this vital fundraiser. Please, give what you can to Medical Aid for Palestinians, whose resilience, compassion and humanity is an inspiration to us all."
You can contribute to the fundraiser here.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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