Bill Wilson MSP

Bill Wilson (MSP, SNP West of Scotland) has signed the motions of several Scottish Parliament MSPs to express anger over the recent Israeli assault on the aid flotilla heading to Gaza.

A 19-year-old Israeli refusenik (“shministim”), Ms Or Ben-David, recently addressed the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group on Palestine and met several MSPs, including Dr Bill Wilson MSP (West of Scotland, SNP).

Dr Wilson said, “It was a humbling experience to meet someone prepared to go to prison for her beliefs, prepared to be ostracised by her peers, prepared to jeopardise her future in the militaristic society that Israel constitutes.

“Ms Ben-David’s testimony was simple and very moving.  She told us how she had been educated in complete ignorance of the Palestinian point of view, how she had been living within a few minutes of occupied territory without realising it, and of how she herself used to react when she heard of people who refused to serve in the Israeli army, thinking of them as traitors.

Dr Bill Wilson MSP (West of Scotland, SNP) today inspected an exhibition set up by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) outside the Scottish Parliament in protest at the “Israel is a world leader in Science, Medicine and Technology” exhibition occurring inside the building.

He commented, “I have no doubt that Israeli science, medicine and technology are highly advanced, but it is offensive to promote these things while the Israeli regime tramples on the human rights of Palestinian citizens.

“I was disturbed to see the pro-Israel exhibition glibly state, ‘Forget petrol, fill your tanks with water’.  Yes, it’s wonderful that Israel can use boron and water to make hydrogen, but should you really be singing about this when the people of Gaza struggle to get enough clean drinking water?

“Until Israel lifts the siege of Gaza and makes reparation for the harm it has done, it does not deserve to have a platform in the Scottish Parliament.  That is why I signed Patrick Harvie’s motion condemning the pro-Israel exhibition.

“I welcome the SPSC counter-exhibition and was moved by the powerful display of children’s shoes and hundreds of tiny coffins, symbolising the children murdered when Israel invaded Gaza two years ago.  The photographs were disturbing, but people should be reminded of the horrors perpetrated on the Palestinian people.

“To oppose Israel’s policies in a peaceful way is to stand up for the long-term wellbeing of all the people of that part of the world, be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian and of other faiths and none, and I was not surprised to see that Scottish Jews for a Just Peace were amongst those protesting the pro-Israel exhibition.”

Dr Bill Wilson MSP (West of Scotland, SNP) welcomed statements made by the European Union Ombudsman recognising Scotland’s under-representation in the European Parliament.

In an interview published in the Scotsman newspaper, EU Ombudsman Nikifouros Diamandouros posited that Scotland’s under-representation in the European Parliament has a negative impact on the way that Scottish people relate to their MEPs and the European Union as a whole.

Dr Wilson said, "The lack of Scottish representation in the EU has been recognised by one of their top officials, but our desperate under-representation, and the harm it does, has been known in Scotland for years.

"Relying on UK representation in the past has put Scotland at a disadvantage. During the BSE crisis, for example, the European Parliament offered to treat Scotland differently than the rest of the UK, but the UK refused to allow the EU to put this plan into operation, unfairly resulting in massive damage to Scottish agriculture.