Glasgow City Council back Solidarity With Palestine motion

Glasgow City Council has backed a landmark motion in support of Gaza and the people of Palestine. 

The Solidarity With Palestine motion was carried on 28 March 2024, by 78 votes to 2. 

The two Tory member amendment was voted down in favour of the Green/SNP/Labour composite motion. 

Yet, even the Tory amendment included a call for a ceasefire, with its mover describing Netanyahu’s response in Gaza as “savage”.

Video stream of debate here. Reports here and here.

Key parts of the motion:

• Council notes that the situation in Gaza has become increasingly dire with starvation imminent for much of the population.
• Council continues to stand in solidarity with all of the victims, their families and communities of the on-going siege of Gaza and related violence.
• Council notes the interim order the International Court for Justice in the case brought by South Africa against Israel, which places six binding actions on Israel, including to do all it can to prevent genocide, refraining from harming or killing Palestinians, urgently getting basic aid to Gaza, and to punish any incitement to genocide. Council further notes that Israel is not enacting these measures and genocide by way of the unjust killing of Palestinian civilians, particularly children, and a growing humanitarian aid crisis have continued uninterrupted, observed by NGO’s such as Amnesty International and Gisha.
• Council continues to stand wholeheartedly against genocide. Council believes the ICJ’s ruling places moral obligations on institutions in the UK, including at all levels of Government, to ensure they are not at risk of directly or indirectly supporting genocide.
• Council commits to widening the present human rights due diligence process when making awards decisions by bringing a report to the City Administration Committee detailing actions that the council can lawfully take to assure itself of supply chains that do not conflict with international humanitarian law and seek legal expertises where necessary to advise this.
• Council further requests that this report outlines an assessment of current Council procurement contracts which include goods or services which have been wholly or partly manufactured, assembled or operated by companies operating in the occupied territories, as per the updated United Nations database of business enterprises in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. 
• Council also agrees that similar commitments should be made by the Scottish and United Kingdom Governments. 
• Council endorses the Scottish Government's call for an arms embargo on Israel and instructs the Leader of the Council to write to the Foreign Secretary to request that the UK Government introduces such an embargo, takes additional steps as required to ensure the UK is not at risk of directly or indirectly supporting genocide, and to encourage him to join countries across the international community in supporting the South African case in the International Court of Justice. 
• Additionally, the Council instructs the Leader of the Council to write to the First Minister to encourage him to act in all possible capacities to prevent the production and transfer of weapons and weapon components from arms companies in Scotland to Israel or their allies. 
• Council commends the work of numerous organisations in Glasgow campaigning for divestment from the arms trade, particularly noting the work of various student campaigns across Glasgow that are encouraging their respective institutions to divest from the arms trade. Council asks elected members who sit on the boards, courts or senates of universities and other educational trusts and funds to use their position to advocate for divestment from arms.
• Council expresses its solidarity with our twin city of Bethlehem, which while not at the core of the current violence, has been the target of raids and a very long occupation. Council requests that the Lord Provost, on behalf of the Council, shares a message of solidarity and condolence with the Mayor of Bethlehem.
• Council also requests that the Lord Provost adds to the flag policy the Palestinian flag to be flown on the 29th November each year for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, as is observed by the United Nations.
• Council requests a paper be brought to CAC to explore the financial relief that Glasgow could offer Palestinians in Gaza by way of Medical Aid for Palestine, similar to the financial relief offered to Ukraine in a meeting on 10th March 2022.
• Council notes that the Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism was developed by a cross-community group of academics to sit alongside the previously-adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition on antisemitism. 

This is a resolution of historic importance from Glasgow in support of Gaza and the people of Palestine. 

In particular, Glasgow has strongly urged both the UK and Scottish governments to do all they can to secure an immediate embargo on arms production and deliveries to Israel. As Israel continues to defy the rulings of the International Court of Justice, Glasgow's firm acknowledgement of the ICJ, and its binding legal instructions to Israel, ensures that the City Council will be doing nothing that directly or indirectly enables the genocide.   

Particular credit here should be given to Green Party spokesperson for International and External Affairs Leòdhas Massie and the Green grouping for initiating and steering the motion. 

Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (GGEC) also played a significant part in securing the motion through months of actions, both outside and inside the City Chambers, and in working with the Greens on the proposals to deliver meaningful measures in finally bringing Glasgow Council to this honourable position in solidarity with Gaza. 

That emergency work now continues, pushed on by GGEC, the Greens and other solidarity bodies to ensure that all these undertakings and measures are duly implemented. 

Glasgow’s surveillance system

One of the key issues for ongoing investigative action concerns the running of Glasgow’s Public Space surveillance system. 

Freedom of Information (FoI) details, obtained by GGEC, has revealed that Glasgow’s surveillance system is partly run by a tech company rooted in Israel:

“We can confirm that the current Public Space CCTV system in Glasgow is in part supported by an Israeli organisation called Qognify.”

“This is a standard CCTV system which provides the connectivity to the cameras and incident management capability for operations.”

“The contract with Qognify is with CGI our ICT service provider and the Council is not party to the details of the contract.”

“We believe that the company NICE was contracted in 2014 who then sold their Video management element to Qognify.”

The origins and continuation of Glasgow City's contractual arrangements here remain obscure and murky. However, these FoI details allow us to discern the following:

In 2014, following a successful bid for government funding, Glasgow City Council contracted Israeli company NICE to run their surveillance operations. 

NICE then sold their video management component to Israeli company Qognify. 

Glasgow Council’s contract is now with CGI, which has its own 'third party' contract with Qognify. 

This puts Glasgow City Council in a specific relationship with a company that’s using an Israeli company’s services. 

Moti Shabtai is president of Qognify. The company is the continuation of military-grade company NICE, of which he was an original part: 

“As President of Qognify, Moti Shabtai brings vast experience to this role as he has been involved with the physical security industry for over 20 years. Moti has been with Qognify since its inception as NICE System’s Physical Security Business Unit and has been instrumental in laying the foundation for its evolution into its current form.”

NICE was contracted by Glasgow Council in 2014 to run their surveillance operations. The Council’s contract is now delivered by CGI, which has, in turn, contracted Qognify to run Glasgow’s video and surveillance service. 

Shabtai’s view of how ‘smart cities’ should be run gives a sinister hint of this company’s ongoing linkages to Israel’s military intelligence. 

This is all solid evidence for Glasgow City Council’s current surveillance contract with CGI to be terminated, in whole or in part. That contract is due to expire in March 2025. 

Investigations are now being pursued into GCC’s original deal with NICE, how the council got into this ‘arms-length’ contract with Qognify via CGI, and how best to remove Qognify and/or CGI, from Glasgow Council services. GGEC are providing regular updates on their FoI exchanges with Glasgow Council and progress on the campaign to remove Qognify. 

Glasgow and arms companies 

Glasgow Council has also, through its adopted motion, now taken the formal decision to support a total arms embargo against Israel. 

Council has pledged to investigate and remove companies acting in potential violation of international law, with specific reference to the recent provisions set down against Israel by the ICJ. 

Glasgow Council has also resolved to write to both the UK and Scottish governments urging them to help expedite a ban on all weapons and components to Israel. 

Glasgow's pledges on arms come amid escalating calls for a block on weapons to the genocidal regime. Recent First Minister Humza Yousaf reiterated his call for a total UK arms embargo. Yet that must be accompanied by the Scottish Government's own assertive use of available powers and influence to effect that process.

The murder of seven aid workers in Gaza, horrific obliteration of Al-Shifa hospital, and bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus are among the many massacres and atrocities that have intensified global calls for a total ban on arms to Israel. We now watch Biden's hypocritical ‘aid’ theatrics, like the humiliating air drops and their paltry pier, knowing that they could stop all this death and destruction just by cutting off arms and political support to Israel. 

That, in turn, raises the obligations of all states and organisations to observe the ICJ rulings. As newly-elected rector of Glasgow University, the heroic surgeon in Gaza, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittu reminds us: 

“By the same logic institutions, such as Glasgow University, who own shares in the arms manufacturers also run the risk of complicity in the crime of genocide. They need to de-risk now.”

In effect, we are now at a stage where, from states to councils, universities to pension funds, every public entity must ensure that it is acting with respect to international law in doing nothing that facilitates the genocide, most immediately in having any involvement, through contract, procurement or services, with arms to Israel.

Local authorities like Glasgow Council must play their own part in helping to stop the genocide by using its acclaimed motion and expanded authority to ensure that such measures are duly implemented and upheld. 

   

Glasgow 'stormtroopers' and the real extremism

'We need urgent public measures to expose and remove the dangerous extremists in our midst.' 

That's the mendacious warning we've been hearing across the political and media 'spectrum'. But, taken as a literal statement, it's actually a useful truth that can be put to proper use. 

The alarming reality is that Sunak and Starmer, the people leading and supporting this venal, warmongering state, are the real extremists. And we better be on extreme alert about what they’re trying to impose on us through their own extremist projections. 

You can always count on the British establishment to use conflicts and wars of their own making and supporting to threaten and purge opposition at home. 

As Israel’s horrific genocide in Gaza continues, with the open, armed support of the UK, Sunak and their warmongering cohorts have lost no time in demonising pro-Palestine protesters and Muslim groups as a ‘public threat’ and proto ‘extremists’. 

It takes a truly Orwellian stretch of the mind to think that while a genocidal regime is busy with the mass-extinguishing of life and infrastructure in Gaza, all backed by the UK, people can still be gaslighted into calling those who actually stand up and oppose that slaughter 'extremists'.   

Sunak’s  recent 'emergency' speech outside Number 10, warning of the 'alarming threat' from pro-Palestine demonstrators, marked a dark moment in this country’s gathering descent into neo-fascist politics. 

His siren claim about “forces here at home trying to tear us apart” signalled another Tory clampdown in the making:  

“The largest Muslim group in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), as well as Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) and Palestine Action have been named by British media as earmarked for inclusion.”

The government's move to draw mainstream, moderate Islamic bodies like MEND into this category of 'extremism' is another clear warning of the new authoritarianism afoot. In effect, any organisation that expresses support for Palestine can now expect to be targeted as a purveyor of civil disorder. 

As Craig Murray weighed it:

“The only sense I can make of this is that the Establishment wishes to make it illegal to express public support for Palestine, and to stand for election if you support Palestine.”

'Dangerous extremists' in Glasgow 

Sunak’s own authoritarian bombast followed a week of crude fearmongering unleashed by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle and a band of unscrupulous politicians, in which a grubby move by Starmer to control Hoyle turned into an ugly fear narrative over ‘public safety’ and the ‘menace’ of pro-Palestine protesters. 

In one tragicomic reaction on that same day, Labour MSP Paul Sweeney claimed that his shared party offices in Glasgow had been “stormed”, and that those involved had “tried to break through the door”:

"The Glasgow constituency office of Labour MSPs was stormed by protestors this afternoon, terrifying and threatening our staff."

In fact, the “storming” and “breaking through doors” had actually involved a small group of peaceful pro-Palestine demonstrators walking in for a quiet enquiry about Labour's positioning on the genocide, support for arms to Israel, and why it hadn't endorsed South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. 

As GGEC later noted of Sweeney’s allegations:

“Truly shameful claims @PaulJSweeney in trying to present a totally peaceful protest as some kind of thuggish mob invasion. In contrast, Sweeney was happy to invite the arms dealers helping to murder children in Gaza into the Scottish Parliament.”

Sweeney's claims were subsequently exposed as gross fabrications, all evidenced by clear video footage, the testimony of a Scotsman journalist, and, in a final humiliation for Sweeney, Police Scotland themselves, who had been in attendance throughout the incident. 

The political fallout for Sweeney from this well-documented incident has been considerable, from public ridicule of his gross exaggerations and distortions to exposure of his failings over the ICJ. 

Sweeney's conduct also, no doubt, contributed to the collapse of his subsequent candidacy for rectorship of Glasgow University - won by an 80% landslide by surgeon and heroic voice for Gaza, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah.   

GMB Union leader Gary Smith had also piled in to Sweeney’s tweet with similar spurious claims, condemning the protesters’ "shameful" behaviour, and the staff "being attacked". Despite all available evidence, and requests to provide anything to the contrary, we still await removal of their scurrilous allegations. 

Peter Oborne gives an excellent account of all the hysteria peddled by Hoyle, Starmer and others which led to Sweeney's own fabricated claims.

As noted, another reason for the group’s peaceful visit to Sweeney’s office was to protest the sponsored invite he had given to a set of arms companies for a wine and dine event at the Scottish Parliament. Sweeney was only forced to withdraw his invite after being confronted by an investigative reporter at The Ferret. 

Arms company guests to the soirée at Holyrood were later blocked that evening by a mass picket of the parliament doors, helping to remind not just Sweeney but the Scottish Government of its own obligation not to enable the genocide by assisting weapons firms and sending arms to Israel. 

The real question here is why ordinary members of the public like us actually have to go to these politicians and ask them to stand against a genocide. How much persuasion should any morally-minded person really need to act against the mass slaughter of human beings?

Many months into the genocide - the mass bombing, starving and displacement of an entire people - so many of our leaders and elected representatives have still to show any meaningful response. 

In another such persuasive exercise, Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee members felt obliged to go directly into Glasgow City Chambers, sit on its fine floor, and await the council leaders coming down their marble stairs to explain such lengthy inaction. When they eventually did descend, the explanations were expectedly underwhelming. 

Having reminded the council of its moral and legal duty not to assist the genocide, a reasonable cross-party statement did subsequently emerge, driven by the GGEC-supporting Green council grouping. 

And persistence does surely pay. The final show for Glasgow Council came on 28 March at their general meeting, where the Greens lead and won a strong GGEC-influenced motion in solidarity with Palestine.

Our task is now to work both inside and outside the City Chambers to get these motion measures fully implemented. 

Further reading 

Jonathan Cook:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-war-corbyn-british-public-smeared

Cook tweet:

https://x.com/ggectee/status/1763600758631506307?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA

Yvonne Ridley: 

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240301-mps-smear-gaza-protestors-while-others-invent-scare-stories/