No more money for Israel's arms dealers
The First Minister has today accepted a proposal from the Scottish Greens to stop all public funding of Israel’s arms dealers.
The decision, announced as part of a statement on the genocide in Gaza, represents a major shift in the Scottish Government’s position.
It follows a long-running campaign from the Scottish Greens and a letter from Green Co-leader Ross Greer calling for the Scottish Government to implement the global campaign of boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel and those who collaborate with it.
In February of this year the SNP and all other parties blocked a motion from Green MSPs which would have instructed the Scottish Government to end all public grants to the arms dealers supplying Israel, the same policy announced by the First Minister today.
Following the announcement Ross said:
“I am glad that the Scottish Government has finally accepted the Scottish Greens' proposal to end all public funding for Israel's arms dealers.
“Israel is committing a genocide in Palestine. Scotland must play our part in ending this atrocity, not bankroll it by handing public cash to the arms dealers making it possible. I hope nations across Europe and the world will follow our example and cut off the supply of weapons to Israel.
“Israel is a genocidal apartheid state. It has occupied Palestinian land and systematically slaughtered the people of Gaza, committing some of the gravest war crimes of this century.
“Arms dealers do not care about the human cost of their business. No company profiting from genocide should get a penny more of public cash here in Scotland. From today that will finally be the case.
“But we can and we must go further. When Putin brutally and illegally invaded Ukraine the Scottish Government rightly and immediately called on every Scottish business to sever all ties and cease all trade with Russia.
“Palestinian lives are worth no less than Ukrainian or Scottish lives, so our actions in support of Palestine must equal the efforts we have taken for Ukraine. That must mean boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel and its collaborators.”