The following motion has been presented to the Scottish Parliament by Jean Urquhart MSP.
Ms Urquhart is Co-Convener of the Cross-Party Group on Palestine at the Scottish Parliament.
For several months, Scottish Friends of Israel (SFI) has been been warning the Israel Embassy and advocating that serious notice be taken by pro-Israel groups, and anyone else who would listen, of the activities of an anti-Israel campaign, the Balfour Project, planned, led and promoted by, among others, the Rev Stephen Sizer who was recently censured by the Church of England Bishop of Guilford for disseminating “openly racist” and “anti-Semitic” material.
The main thrust of the Balfour Project is a call to the Westminster Parliament to make an apology (as framed in this motion) and to engage willing MPs, MSPs and others in promotion of its aims, leading up to the centenary of the Balfour Declaration in 2017. This motion to the Scottish Parliament is the first salvo.
There has also been a concerted effort by this campaign to have this narrative inserted into the curriculum of Scottish schools. Their activists, promoted the contents of the after-mentioned motion at a recent meeting of the Cross-party Group on Palestine at the Scottish Parliament, where it was suggested by an education Quality Improvement Officer from West Dunbartonshire Council that such a narrative was“Needed to balance the Holocaust one”.
I think that quote alone sums up the mind-set of those willing to promote this narrative.
SFI is currently in communications with the Scottish Government and local authority education officials to alert them accordingly.
Calls for a UK Apology to the Palestinian People
That the Parliament regrets the decision of the UK to disengage from Palestine on 14 May 1948; believes that this contributed to the subsequent Arab-Israeli conflict and the displacement or expulsion of around 700,000 Palestinians in an event known as al-Nakba or "the Catastrophe"; considers that it constituted a failure by the UK in its duty to protect the Palestinian people during partition; offers an apology on behalf of the people of Scotland, and calls on the UK Government to offer a similar apology.
Supported by: John Finnie, Bill Kidd
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