WE are Jewish university staff in Scotland who stand with our students in our refusal to be complicit with genocide, crimes against humanity and the atrocities unfolding in Israel/Palestine. We fully support the students involved in the Gaza solidarity encampments and their demands that the universities concerned should immediately divest investments from any company involved in the Israeli military occupation, cut their ties with Israeli universities, and allocate resources to support Palestinian students and rebuild their severely damaged universities.
We share the dismay and despair expressed by our students at the continued violence on the people of Gaza, their territory, institutions, lives, and livelihoods, and, coming from a group targeted and almost eliminated by genocide, we refuse to be associated to the genocidal violence inflicted on the Palestinian people.
Recent pronouncements by Rishi Sunak and recent talks between Universities UK and the Government seem to prepare for a crackdown on student-led encampments for solidarity with Palestine in the UK, all in the name of protection of free speech and against anti-Semitism.
We condemn such blatant weaponisation of anti-Semitism: treating anti-Semitism as a tool to oppress those standing against the current atrocities committed by the Israeli government defies reason and propriety. We say loudly and proudly: not in our name.
We all identify equally as Jewish, but we have a range of views about politics in general and the State of Israel in particular. It is a simplistic and offensive stereotype to assume that we are all of one position or that any specific opinion is more "authentically" Jewish than any other. It is profoundly wrong to assume that our views about Israel are tied to our Jewish identity - either coming from anti-Semites who hold us responsible for the acts of that State or from representatives of that State who presuppose our support and purport to speak in all our names. It follows that any definition that conflates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel is also offensive and wrong: it erases many Jewish voices and risks exacerbating anti-Jewish racism.
It is equally unacceptable to conflate protests against the acts of the Israeli state in Israel/Palestine, and its appalling treatment of the Palestinian people with antagonism towards Jewish people in general. Indeed many Jews and Israelis have been involved in these protests. These are overwhelmingly legitimate political protests directed at a political entity - the State of Israel - that our Government supports. They are not directed against Jewish people, they should not make people feel unsafe as Jews, and they welcome anyone of any faith or ethnicity who shares their concerns at the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
We thus call on Scottish universities to protect the protestors at the encampments and respect peaceful acts of solidarity with Palestine on our campuses. Furthermore, we call on them to uphold a positive and generative vision of what resisting anti-Semitism means, in alliance with the fights against all racism and discrimination, rather than as a policing tool.
Christopher Anaforian (St Andrews), Justin Lorenzo Biggi (St Andrews), Ivan Clark (Edinburgh), Isabelle Darmon (Edinburgh), Livnat Decleve (Edinburgh), Jeremy Dell (Edinburgh), Ophira Gamliel (Glasgow), Quinn Gibson (Aberdeen), Marion Hersh (Glasgow), Elliot Holmes (Edinburgh), Henry Ivry (Glasgow), Talitha Kearey (St Andrews), Rhys Machold (Glasgow), Matt Spitz Mahon (Glasgow), Henry Maitles (University of the West of Scotland), Alex Mohan Morzeria-Davis (Edinburgh), Diana Paton (Edinburgh), Giovanni Picker (Glasgow), Jess Rickenback (Edinburgh), Stephen Reicher (St Andrews), Samuel Rutherford (Glasgow), Neil Turok (Edinburgh), Philip Wadler (Edinburgh).
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Make Sauchiehall Street priority
AS a frequent visitor to Glasgow from Alloa (travelling by train) I recently took the opportunity to wander along Sauchiehall Street.
A building site to behold, I admire the tenacity of local shops, businesses and the public to put up with this major disruption.
The recent article by Craig Williams re the plans to revamp George Square ("Major George Square revamp to begin next year, council confirms", The Herald, May 30) therefore somewhat disconcerted me. Of course the improvements of the Avenues Programme are be welcomed, if the work improves footfall, customer experience and encourages shops and business to remain in the city centre.
However I do hope the work in Sauchiehall Street is completed before any new work commences.
I also hope the Royal Concert Hall steps will be retained.
Mrs Teresa McNally, Alloa.
Why I wish I was Carnegie
I RECENTLY had cause to venture down at quite short notice to "The Big Smoke" which, to be fair, is a lot less smoky than it used to be. This is probably due to congestion charges, but much more likely to be due to the prices of food and drink when you "Go up west" as they say in a well-known soap opera that I have never, ever, watched in moi loif ('onest guv, I 'aven't).
Anyway, it's obviously this irritability with the price of things, coupled with my advancing years, that almost had me choking on my falsers when faced with the prospect of booking travel to "London, the greatest city in the world". Not my words, of course, but those of the legendary Edgar Lustgarten.
Told you my years are advancing. That piece of name-dropping should set the young yins amongst your readership scrambling to look up Goggle, or Heyyou! or whatever they call these new-fangled engines to search with.
Using one of these very same engines, my wonderful wife, quicker than I could say "I'll away into town and see what the deals are" procured prices for three modes of travel: planes, trains and omnibuses.
Planes and trains both wanted several hundred pounds, yet a luxury omnibus - called a coach nowadays - was priced at £50 return. The only problem, my wife told me, was that it was a midnight departure down and the very same back the next night.
Oh how I laughed and took pleasure in asking my good lady "Do you think I'm Carnegie?" when she asked if I would not rather stay in a hotel and come back the next day. Perhaps I should have listened.
When I arrived at Buchanan bus station I was surprised to see so many young people waiting for the journey south. Why weren't they wrapped up in bed for schuil in the morning?
Now, I have no allergy to youngsters (sorry, aversion), but just as I was comfying into my seat, ready for a few hours of blissful shut-eye, all at once, in unison, every child on the coach pushed in earplugs and began having (very loud) conversations with their portable telephones.
This went on all night. Both nights.
By the time I arrived back in Glasgow I was in shellshock. My darling wife had promised to pick me up early doors from Wee Buckie's terminus and when she saw my dishevelled and ancient form she smiled wryly and asked: "I bet you wish you were Carnegie!"
Gordon Fisher, Stewarton.
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