Raised, steered and presented by councillor Leòdhas Massie and his Green Party grouping, the resolution set down in unequivocal terms the Council’s acknowledgment of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Israel’s attack on Gaza is a “plausible” case of genocide, and that nothing the Council are involved in should serve to enable that genocide. [2]
Of added significance was the motion’s instruction - included at the specific request of Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (GGEC) - to the Scottish Government urging it to do all it can to bring about an embargo on all arms from Scotland to Israel:
“Additionally, the Council requests that 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.”
The legal case for that call has since been solidified by the International Criminal Court (ICC) ordering arrest warrants against Israeli leader Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant.
On 24 May 2024, the ICJ further ordered Israel to cease its attack on Rafah in the southern part of Gaza.
On 20 June 2024, four major international human rights groups - War on Want, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Global Legal Action Network, and the International Centre for Justice for Palestinians - wrote to twenty UK-based arms manufacturers, warning them of criminal liability for war crimes, and that weapons transfers to Israel must stop immediately:
“The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide”.
They were immediately joined in that endeavour by thirty leading Experts at the UN Human Rights Council.
In effect, the world’s highest court had laid down the clearest, most binding instruction yet to all states and organisations: do not enable the genocide by arming Israel.
On 19 July 2024 the ICJ passed down a separate, but immensely significant ruling that Israels's presence and conduct across the entirety of the Occupied Palestine Territories is "unlawful".
The implications of that ruling for third party states and organisations is equally profound. In essence, they are in violation of international law if serving to assist Israel in that same unlawful process.
By July 2024, around 40,000 people had been confirmed murdered by Israel in Gaza, over 15,000 of them children. Over 89,000 had been injured. Homes, hospitals, mosques, churches, schools, universities and every other kind of infrastructure has been decimated. Over 10,000 people remain buried under the rubble. Epidemiologists writing at the esteemed medical journal The Lancet estimate a much more realistic figure of 186,000 deaths caused by bombing, displacement, starvation and disease (The Lancet: 5 July 2024; UN: OCHA updates). But even that figure is likely to be a conservative underestimate, with death figure much more likely to be in the reaches of 600,000, a quarter of Gaza's population.
With its continued refusal to uphold international law, and multiple horror images still coming out of Gaza, there is now not just unassailable global revulsion, but authoritative legal backing for the complete cessation of all weaponry and components to Israel.
Both the legal authority and political cover this brings with it could not be more helpful to our elected officials. There is no serious risk in adhering to international law and calls for actions based on legalities now widely backed by the world's highest court, and supported across the world.
In a letter of reply to the GGEC Arms Companies Team (21 May 2024) the Scottish Government affirmed its own call for such an arms embargo on Israeli weapons, while acknowledging Glasgow Council’s similar commitment. [3]
Yet while commendable pledges, these dual endorsements still leave unanswered the question of what specific actions the Scottish Government, and Glasgow Council, can take to help impose such an embargo.
Added to this problem is the embarrassment of continued Scottish Government funding to many of the arms companies located in Scotland, notably Raytheon, BAE and Leonardo, via its main funding stream, Scottish Enterprise. [4]
“Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Leonardo have all received taxpayer-funded grants from Scottish Enterprise since Israel began its assault on Palestine after the Hamas attacks on October 7, The Ferret reports. BAE was paid its grant – worth £360,000 – on April 4, just a day after then-first minister Humza Yousaf wrote to the UK Government calling for arms sales to be stopped. The company helps make the F-35 fighter jet which Israel has used to bomb Gaza.” [5]
Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) also confirm that Scottish Enterprise has awarded £8,367,691 to multi-billion-pound arms companies across Scotland since 2021 to conduct genocide in Gaza and the bombardment of Yemen. [6]
So what can the Scottish Government, following Glasgow Council’s motion remit, and its own declaration of intent, do to that specific effect?
Despite lacking direct powers over UK foreign policy, the Scottish Government could still undertake many assertive approaches and actions.
It could, firstly, and with immediate effect, stop all assistance, financial and otherwise, to any arms company and ancillary firms operating in Scotland.
Secondly, it could press trade unions within the ‘defence’ sector to support workers at shop-floor level in refusing to handle embargoed armaments.
Having superseded much of the old Labour-trade union bonds, both the SNP-led Government and Glasgow Council now carry significant weight within and across the trade union movement. Such influence could be utilised to much greater effect.
The major challenge here concerns both government and union protection of those ‘defence’ industries and jobs. These are not insignificant numbers. A report commissioned by the right-leaning GMB union found that “an estimated 13,840 people are currently employed at Ministry of Defence (MOD) installations in Scotland”, representing “a total of 20,687 jobs and £473.4 million worth of wage payments across Scotland”. It also notes that the “Aerospace, Defence, Marine and Security (ADMS) sector is estimated to directly employ a total 38,400 people in Scotland”, with the “two BAE yards at Govan and Scotstoun directly employ[ing] a total of 2,723 people in Glasgow.” [7]
Thus, there is manifest resistance to any disruption of those industries from corporate, government and union forces alike. The GMB, representing the BAE workforce, has shown particular reticence in these regards.
Yet despite the understandable desire to protect workers’ livelihoods, a recent pro-Palestine blockade of BAE in Glasgow, successfully shutting it down for the day, saw large levels of public support for the action. [8]
As CAAT note, there is widespread public opposition across Scotland to the genocide and supply of weaponry to Israel. [9]
Landmark protests have also continued over the Scottish Government’s part in allowing weapons to Israel, and its insidious relations with arms companies.
This included a mass demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament against its hosting of an arms companies reception, a particularly lamentable act in the middle of the Gaza slaughter. [10]
A peace encampment outside the parliament building has also mounted a determined protest, including hunger strike actions, against the Scottish Government’s effective complicity in the genocide. Two of the Gaza Solidarity Camp Scotland’s key demands are that it impose an arms embargo on Israel, and divest from all Israeli companies. [11]
Nor has the replacement of Humza Yousaf with John Swinney as First Minister changed in any way the Scottish Government's lacklustre positioning on arms. The SNP's massive defeat at the 2024 Westminster general election, replaced with Starmerite MPs across Scotland, means it now holds less political sway in forcing the issue. Nonetheless, with even Starmer now feeling pressured by the ICJ rulings to consider limited restrictions on UK arms to Israel, the Scottish Government must uphold the same legal obligations in helping to halt such weaponry.
The protesters' message invokes the horror reality that those very weapons and components being made here in Scotland are going to massacre children in Gaza.
Despite the ICJ ordering Israel to stop its military onslaught, we have witnessed the ongoing and wilful slaughter of civilians living in paltry tents, broken schools and other makeshift shelters. Displaced and starving people are being massacred in relentless attacks. That’s the real costs, the direct loss of human lives, which must be calculated here.
Nor is the UK's part in arming the genocide insubstantial. Claims that the UK ‘only’ supplies under one percent of arms to Israel are deeply misleading. Firstly, this figure does not account for the substantial trading of unlicensed arms and parts to the regime. According to CAAT:
“UK industry provides 15% of the components in the F35 stealth combat aircraft that are currently being used in the bombardment of Gaza. The contract for the components is estimated by Campaign Against Arms Trade to be worth £336m since 2016. Between 2018 and 2022, the UK exported £146m in arms sales via Single Issue Export Licences. However, a large proportion of military equipment exported is via Open General Export Licences. These open licences, which include the F35 components, lack transparency and allow for unlimited quantities and value of exports of the specified equipment without further monitoring.” [12]
“the real value of arms exports to Israel is twice as high as the government claims it is – at least £1 billion since 2015. The UK has exported £489m in single issue licences since 2015. However 62 open licences have also been issued since 2015. Under open licences, a company can export unlimited amounts of specified military equipment without further reporting requirements. One open licence is for components for the F35 fighter jets Israel is using to bombard Gaza – 15% of the value of every F-35 is produced in the UK.” [13]
Claims about the UK’s ‘minimal arms supply’ have no legal standing. The ICJ’s ruling that there should be no enabling of the genocide means that there should be no arms sent for that purpose.
And, of course, the sending of any arms is bereft of moral argument. If only one single weapon or essential component was being sent to take a life in Palestine it would still be wrong to allow that sale to proceed and that life to be taken.
The disgraceful obfuscation of Starmer's incoming Labour government in failing to impose an immediate and outright ban on all weapons to Israel speaks volumes about the deeply entrenched and enduring relationship between the British state and global arms industry.
Ultimately, beyond all the understandable concerns over jobs and economic wellbeing, we must still return to the higher concern for human lives. And any such thinking on the protection of lives in Gaza has to start looking at our part in this wider economy of death.
The issue here isn’t just about the retaining or diversifying of jobs, important as that is. It’s about retraining our minds over the very issue of militarist production and the powerful corporate and political forces it serves. For the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise, there should be no sending of any public money to any arms company.
We have to start questioning not just the economics of militarism, but the very culture of militarism that serves to normalise this country’s participation in the manufacturing of weaponry.
This includes the kind of deferential patronage bestowed upon weapons companies and their executives. Thus, as the genocide in Gaza continues, this would be an opportune moment to remove BAE’s Sir Simon Lister from the Glasgow State of the City Economy board.
The exclusion of such figures from Scottish Government and council bodies would help send another strong signal of intent.
We need to lead and act by example. Every political and civic act in support of a humanitarian arms embargo over Gaza should be seen as a complementary step towards an economy of disarmament and peace in which we produce things for the common weal rather than a deathly deal.
And, of course, we must also be pushing to remove from Faslane the same nuclear horrors that Israel keeps hidden away in the Negev Desert.
In a landmark article, Susan Abulhawa has written that Gaza is now our defining moment of awareness:
“Gaza is no longer the densely-populated strip of Israeli-occupied land. Rather, Gaza is now all the world. Gaza is our collective moment of truth, the meaning in our lives. It is the clarity we need and seek. It is the definitive divide between us and the ruling class that tramples us. It is us or them. There is no middle place now. All the borders fade, leaving us united to confront this greedy genocidal minority everywhere.” [14]
That kind of statement should be our guideline here. It’s not just a slogan to say ‘people before bombs’. It’s an emergency call to action, a signpost of our urgent moral priorities. It’s about asking what we really value. It’s about the harnessing of skills and production towards true forms of human defence. It’s about real security of life for people in Gaza, across Palestine, and for all humanity.
Links:
[1] https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/news/glasgow-life-update-on-gaza
[2] https://glasgow.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/823152
[3] https://ggec.org.uk/exchange-of-letters-between-ggec-arms-companies-team-and-scottish-government/
[6] https://caat.org.uk/take-action/campaign-with-us/stop-funding-repression/
[8] https://x.com/ggectee/status/1785570118455419289?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA
[9] https://caat.org.uk/take-action/campaign-with-us/stop-funding-repression/
[10] https://x.com/ggectee/status/1760418493537640824?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA
[11]https://x.com/ggectee/status/1784980694466170946?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA
[12] https://caat.org.uk/news/statement-on-uk-arms-exports-to-israel/
[14] https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-our-moment-truth/46401
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