Scotland's people do not endorse these war crimes by Israel
READ MORE: Banning Palestine Action an 'abuse of power', High Court told
This is not just shameful; it is intolerable.
Scotland's people do not endorse these crimes. We are not willing participants in this grotesque complicity. But as long as we remain shackled to a Ruritanian state run by blustering buffoons in London, our voices – and our values – are overridden on the world stage. Scotland's future is harmed by being shackled to a backward-looking, imperialist-days-of-yore set of dreamers with no hope and no aspiration of rising from the decay of Rule Britannia long gone!
How long will Scots put up with this? There comes a point when silence makes us complicit too. If Westminster's foreign policy is to be conducted in the service of imperial nostalgia and military-industrial partnerships, then it's past time Scotland cut its ties. Even now we see frantic efforts to silence dissent by the arrest of citizens wearing T-shirts with slogans unacceptable to the misguided foreign policy of the Gilbert and Sullivan characters who grace the stage of Westminster.
Independence is not only about economic potential or democratic renewal – it is also a moral necessity.
Peter Macari
Aberdeen
THOUSANDS turned out in the rain for the pro-Palestine demonstration on Saturday in Edinburgh. It was organised by the [[Gaza]] Genocide Emergency Committee in response to a Declassified UK report on the RAF's 518 spy flights over [[Gaza]] since October 2023.
The protest followed the Starmer regime's banning of the peaceful protest group [[Palestine]] Action on July 2. Protesters held defiant signs: 'Genocide in [[Palestine]] – Time to Take Action.'
Starting from St Giles, the crowd marched to Queen Elizabeth House to hear speakers including Tommy Sheppard and Lesley Riddoch.
READ MORE: Protesters gather outside court for Palestine activists hearing
Then it was on to John Swinney's official residence at Bute House. Speakers included a Dundee firefighter whose Fire Brigade Union (FBU) members sourced and refitted a fire engine with medical and firefighting equipment for Palestinian firefighters in the West Bank town of Nablus in July 2024.
The engine, which had all necessary paperwork, was driven from Dundee to Southampton and shipped to the port of Ashdod, where on July 21 2024 it arrived and was immediately seized by the Zionist entity. Four months later, the FBU sent a letter to the entity's UK ambassador demanding its release.
The engine remains impounded as the Zionist entity's violence against and murder of Palestinians in the West Bank intensifies and its genocide of Gazans grinds on. What says the UK Government? Nothing.
READ MORE: Who is on the Freedom Flotilla Handala ship to Gaza?
Last Tuesday three women were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 because they allegedly drove a van into a perimeter fence around the Leonardo weapons facility in Edinburgh. The Scottish administration provides public funding to the company which manufactures laser targeting components for F-35 jets used by the Zionist entity to bomb Gaza.
I couldn't help but wonder how different things could be if Scotland were an independent nation, able to project its people's voices and values onto the world stage, rather than a vassal of a disunited and venal state that is actively supporting the annihilation of an entire people.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
EVERY time I think that I have grappled sufficiently with my emotions so that I am not in a permanent state of outrage and an all-consuming sadness, the soldiers of the world's 'most moral army' do something that rips through that facade and exposes yet another act of utter depravity and barbarism. I have seen footage of a British surgeon, Nick Maynard, practically in tears as he says children are being targeted 'as if it's a game' where one day they are shot in the head, another day the neck, and yet another day the testicles.
READ MORE: IDF soldiers 'arrested at Tomorrowland festival over war crimes'
Can you imagine how our politicians would denounce this if Russians were doing it to Ukrainians? The UN is impotent; South Africa, Ireland, Norway and Spain have taken action, along with countries from the Global South. Yet we, along with the US and Germany, continue to aid and abet this, and if we protest we can be charged with supporting terrorism. This is sick sick sick and we will never let our craven 'leaders' – 'critical friends' all – forget it.
Marjorie Ellis Thompson
Edinburgh
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