Hypocrisy and double standards taint the West's view of Israel

The Herald Scotland

12-06-2025

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967. The UN and the International Court of Justice have said time and again that the occupation is illegal, but that hasn't stopped Israel from allowing 700,000 of its citizens to settle there, displacing Palestinians by often violent means in the process.
The Israeli military have actively assisted in the eviction of ordinary Palestinian families from their homes and land. Yet only now does the West take baby steps to express its displeasure; it's far too little and far too late.
Do our leaders not recognise their hypocrisy and double standards? There's no doubt that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a brutal and illegal act, rightly condemned by the West. But Russia hasn't reduced Ukraine to rubble and what it's doing is a recognisable war of imperial conquest.
What Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel is doing in the West Bank is ethnic cleansing; in Gaza, there's no war, but there is genocide.
The evil of apartheid in South Africa was overturned by a determined campaign of boycott, divestment and sanction. Why on earth are we not doing the same to Israel?
Apartheid was a cruel, racist policy, but it didn't involve dropping one-tonne bombs on terrified families in tents, it didn't involve the slaughter of 17,000 children in a little over a year and a half. Yet South African athletes were barred from international competition, while Israel is invited to sing a cheery song at the Eurovision Song Contest; why?
The West appears to have lost its moral compass, or maybe we've just become inured to scenes of atrocity on our screens.
We see and hear dreadful reports from so many parts of the world and it can be tempting to just shrug and look away. That's a temptation that must be resisted.
We should be looking out for our neighbours, doing what we can to help the weak and innocent when they are assailed by violent oppressors. And, in the modern connected world, everybody is a neighbour.
Doug Maughan, Dunblane.
Why can't London replace Faslane?
WHAT a surprise! Rachel Reeves has included a couple of important 'gifts' to Scotland from the large proportion of our Scottish taxes that Westminster keeps, under the pretext of using them to pay for pan-UK projects like Crossrail and HS2.
We are, after all, to get the new computer for Edinburgh University that was promised before the general election last year, but cancelled when Labour won a big enough majority not to need Scottish support.
We will also get funds for the Acorn carbon capture project in Aberdeenshire, which was ready to establish a world-first pilot more than a decade ago, but was refused funding by Westminster, in spite of support from the oil companies agreeing to the use of their pipelines and depleted wells, and at a time when its success might have saved Longannet.
This project site was also bypassed when funding was allocated instead to two sites in England and was left on the back-burner.
I wonder, however, if even now, it will actually go ahead. I may be becoming a conspiracy theorist, but I suspect these two funding offers are the bribe to sweeten the pill of Scotland providing the facilities for the Westminster intention to increase the nuclear components of their defence plans and to base them at Faslane, as far from London as possible.
I believe that is precisely the purpose of the funding to 'upgrade' to that site and will be the first recipient project to be undertaken. Thereafter, it is not beyond possibility that 'changing fiscal circumstances' might still see the other two cancelled, again.
I firmly believe that the majority of Scots already consider that having nuclear capacity so close to our largest city makes us a first-strike target and want them removed. If it is safe enough on that site, then somewhere on the Thames in the periphery of London should be equally safe.
Of course, when the upgrade is completed, the redundant submarines et cetera will then quickly be added to the rotting hulks at Rosyth and radioactive material buried somewhere in the north of Scotland. Are we happy to host yet more, more powerful, nukes, attack submarines and such dangerous material anywhere in Scotland? If not, independence is the only way to avoid it, and soon!
L. McGregor, Falkirk.
Time is up for the nationalists
IN the spending allocation Scotland has been given a record £52 billion for its budget and the predicted reaction from the SNP is that it's not enough.
The harsh reality is that the SNP have over the last 18 years totally mismanaged funds and wasted millions of pounds through total incompetence and poor commercial judgement such as the ferry fiasco, Prestwick Airport, and pursuing lost causes in the courts.
The Hamilton by-election allowed the Scottish voter a say in what they thought about the SNP and gave them a real bloody nose as change is urgently needed in Scotland and the time is now up for the SNP.
Dennis Forbes Grattan,
Bucksburn, Aberdeen
Swinney should lead SNP next May
IT is unbelievable that senior SNP figures should be contemplating a change in leader of the party with less than a year to go until the next Scottish Parliamentary Election. Other than appointing Nigel Farage, a change of leader will do nothing for the party's chances next May.
The sensible course of action is to fight the next election with John Swinney as leader and then consider changing leader in a controlled and dignified manner. Knee-jerk reactions do no credit to the SNP and if that is the way in which they intend to behave it does not augur well for an independent Scotland.
Sandy Gemmill,
Edinburgh.
WHEN you think of all the things Labour's Joani Reid could have raised with Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions It seems strange that Ms Reid should squander her opportunity by asking whether Sir Keir thought John Swinney 'should stay put' as SNP leader following the Hamilton Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. Ms Reid made no mention of the raft of SNP successes in defeating Labour at recent council by-elections, including a double win in March. So certainly, Mr Swinney should stay put.
Ruth Marr,
Stirling.
Unhealthy competition
HEALTH Minister Neil Gray said that 'A&E in Scotland faces similar pressures to those elsewhere in the UK.'
May I remind Mr. Gray that running our health service is not a race against England, Wales or Northern Ireland. It's not a competition to see who has the best medical services.
You were elected to be part of the Scottish cabinet doing a very important job for Scotland. Unfortunately you're not very good at it.
Ian Balloch,
Grangemouth.
Managing NHS resources
YOUR correspondent, David Gilchrist, asks whether the resources of the NHS could be more economically organised (letters, June 11).
An important issue, to be sure. Premises and equipment are essential, certainly, but the most important and expensive resource the NHS employs is its workforce.
Mr Gilchrist offers three negative portrayals of NHS staff.
Firstly, you can see 'a large number of staff milling about, sitting at computers.'
Apart from the obvious fact that using a computer is an absolutely essential part of the delivery of patient care, it's a good trick to be able to 'mill about' while sitting at one.
Secondly, the staff is described as 'enormous.' Well, yes, look at how much work needs to be done.
Thirdly, 'unionised' is used pejoratively. This is insulting.
Unions exist to ensure that working people are fairly rewarded for the work that they do.
Does anybody think that they shouldn't be?
AJ Clarence,
Prestwick.
English people heading north
IN Jane Lax's partly justifiable critique of Scotland under the SNP ('Why on earth would anyone want to come to Scotland?', letters, June 12) she ignores the fact that, as a recent newspaper article elsewhere has highlighted, immigration from England is booming.
It also said that those coming to the UK will tend to seek their compatriots already here ('birds of a feather fly together'), most of whom are in England's conurbations.
George Morton, Rosyth.