A breakdown in relations between Israel & Scotland shows a shift in Palestine solidarity

At the SNP conference last week, Angus Robertson, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for External Affairs, said he was “profoundly sorry” that "any impression was given of any normalisation with the Israeli Government".

Robertson’s act of self-abasement before irate party members was intended to draw a line under the scandal which engulfed the Scottish Government after he met Daniela Grudsky, the Deputy Ambassador for Israel to the UK. But notably, he did not repeat the substantive decision made by his party in response to that scandal: an end to meetings with Israeli representatives for the time being.

The pause marks a new departure for the Scottish Government, which has sought to balance popular anger over the oppression of the Palestinians, against commitments to Western foreign policy.

In many ways Scotland is typical of Israel’s deteriorating image in the West. The country has seen a growth of street protests, direct action and the boycott movement in recent years. Past months of slaughter in Gaza have seen a continued upsurge, with even larger demonstrations, university encampments and disruptive protests at Scottish arms manufacturers, these last repressed with lengthy prison sentences.

Attachments to Israel by political elites have also been characteristic. Though there are some particular links between Scotland and Israel – especially arms, with Scottish weapons factories supplying Israel receiving millions in grants from the Scottish Government –  relations with the state are more broadly based and ideological. In the minds of figures on the right of the SNP, as in other parties and the press, a pro-Israel stance comes in a package with support for the US and NATO, and burgeoning confrontations with China and Russia.

Yet Scotland has proven a weak link for Israel in recent years, for two main reasons. One is that the SNP’s base in the broader nationalist movement contains a substantial sympathy for the Palestinian struggle. This was evident both outside and within the SNP’s recent gathering, where protestors found an echo with members sporting Palestinian pins in the conference hall. The second reason is that, lacking the full powers of an independent state, the Scottish Government is freer to make symbolic gestures at odds with the Western consensus.

This was highlighted in a recent and little noted confrontation between then First Minister Humza Yousaf and his predecessor, and sometime dominant figure in nationalist politics, Nicola Sturgeon. In October, as Yousaf distinguished himself from the wider British political scene by making early pleas for an end to bombing in Gaza, his former leader blamed Hamas for the unfolding massacre – a clear if indirect reprimand.

Sturgeon presided over a hardening of Atlanticist attitudes in the party, taking positions at the hawkish end of NATO by demanding a continued occupation of Afghanistan in 2021, and insisting a no fly zone over Ukraine (which could mean direct military contact between NATO and Russian forces) should not be ruled out. Her leadership also saw a push by the right of the party against the Palestine solidarity movement. In 2016, with the party still in its pomp, Stewart McDonald MP (the party’s defence spokesperson from 2017) backed the formation of a pro-Israel group with support from the Israeli consulate, within the SNP.

Yousaf’s early demand for a ceasefire, and his calls for the UK to recognise Palestinian statehood, demonstrated a truth unwelcome in his party establishment: that hard-line Atlanticism was not the only approach. His replacement by John Swinney has seen a backlash against this short-lived experiment in limited foreign policy independence. It was Swinney who authorised the meeting with Grudsky, which the latter portrayed as a routine meeting to discuss “the fields of technology, culture and renewable energy”. The source of the controversy was, therefore, the meeting point of an Israeli quest for scarce legitimacy, and the Scottish Government’s attempts to correct what they view as an excess of foreign policy dissidence. The backlash indicates that Western diplomatic relations with Israel have, perforce, entered a new era.

This can be gauged in Scotland by the fact that militant Atlanticist political figures have been forced to retreat on the question of Israel. McDonald, now an ex-MP, addressed the Robertson affair by mourning that critics had “lost their minds”. But even he had to concede that a normal diplomatic meeting should not have gone ahead, at least “not in the current climate”. These most determined Western supporters of Israel will attempt to restore relations in coming years. But real damage has been sustained by Israel’s public image, and politicians will seek to find ways to manage or repress opposition to restoring the former status quo.

On its own, Scotland is a small matter in this international drama. The Israeli state’s year of devastating mass violence in Gaza, sprawling out at intervals to the West Bank, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, has recast the entire question of Israel and Palestine in the minds of tens of millions around the world. But the breakdown of relations between the Scottish and Israeli Governments under popular pressure is a window on a global trend.

The fury with which the Israeli government received news of the suspension of a small proportion of arms exports from the UK highlights growing fears of isolation. Israeli rulers are highly dependent on the financial, military and political support of Western allies, who they increasingly deride as myopic and disloyal, or treat to churlish public relations campaigns like that which tripped the Scottish Government. These are signs of desperation, and that the efforts of solidarity campaigners are having an effect.

David Jamieson is a Glasgow based journalist and co-editor of Conter.scot.

Follow him on X: @David_Jamieson7

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