The Scottish nationalists are aggrieved. What’s new, I hear you ask. Well, a diplomatic row, one which has prompted some decidedly undiplomatic language. The Scottish establishment is worked up after it emerged that Angus Robertson, the Scottish government’s pretendy foreign secretary, met with Daniela Grudsky. Who’s she? Why, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom. Their confab took place on 8 August but word has only just got out.
The pair discussed fairly routine and low-level matters like cultural cooperation and renewables. To hear the howls from politicos and activists, you’d think Robertson leapt into a tank and rolled into Gaza. His colleagues have lined up to denounce the meeting, with one even branding him ‘an absolute disgrace’ and calling for his dismissal. This is for sitting down with a representative of a country which, despite the Labour government’s best efforts, has good diplomatic relations and trading links with the UK. A country currently locked in a war of self-defence against well-funded, internationally-aided terrorist organisations which invaded its territory last October, murdering 1,200 of its citizens, raping women and taking 250 hostages, including children.
The uncontrollable loathing that Israel inspires in certain sections of the SNP is pitiful but it’s also a shame. The late Winnie Ewing, the great matriarch of Scottish nationalism, was a passionate Zionist who holidayed in Israel and got to know political leaders from left to right. As I noted in my obituary for Madame Ecosse last June, the Israelis took to her so keenly that during one visit, when Golda Meir was in Washington, Ewing and her husband were given the prime minister’s limousine and driver to take them around the country sightseeing.
Things have changed. Where progressives once used Israel to live out their own political fantasies, with the socialist kibbutzniks cast in the role of romantic revolutionaries, the Jewish state now fulfils the role of universal malefactor, an evil-doer of near-demonic depravity with whose wickedness the enlightened can contrast their own virtue. Israel is the Emmanuel Goldstein of international affairs and the hate has been going on for a lot longer than two minutes.
That some nationalists and others in Scottish politics react to Israel like Regan MacNeil to an exorcism is unfortunate, but it causes more difficulty for SNP ministers than anyone else. It makes it harder for them to pretend to be credible actors in global affairs. Sure, it’s sad for someone like me, a Scottish Zionist who would name half the streets in Edinburgh after Theodor Herzl if given the chance, but I have a suggestion for the SNP on that front.
If the Scottish government wants to schmooze with Israeli officials, they should send me. Not to be immodest but I’m brilliant at it. I still remember my first meeting with an Israeli diplomat. He began by talking about peace and co-existence – thoughtfully and with some eloquence – when I interrupted and demanded to know why Benjamin Netanyahu had acquiesced to Barack Obama’s 2009-10 settlement freeze. And why had the government promised to build so many housing units in Judea and Samaria – you’d better believe I didn’t call it the West Bank – and then failed to deliver them? And when was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs going to incorporate into its public diplomacy strategy the case for Israel’s sovereign claims over the Green Line?
He was impeccably professional but I’ll never forget the look on his face. It was the expression of an Israeli diplomat who had somehow found himself being grilled on settlements from the right. I have mellowed (a little) and would promise not to scare anyone now.
Of course, there’s a surefire way to avoid similar stooshies in the future: Scottish government ministers should stop meeting with representatives of foreign governments altogether. They could pretend that international affairs is reserved to Westminster and leave the diplomatic chinwags to a government department that has Britain’s best interests at heart. Or, failing that, the Foreign Office.
But how would the Scottish government pass the time if it was no longer cosplaying at international relations? Well, there’s an attainment gap they could try to close. Cancer waiting times targets they could finally attempt to meet. They might even turn their hand to a spot of shipbuilding. The possibilities are endless. Well, at least for another two years.
They’re not going to do any of that, though. Pretending that the Scottish government is a global player and Scotland an emerging independent state lies at the heart of their strategy. They’re doing what in Israel is known as chai b’seret: living in a movie. The fantasy of international relevance is too appealing to give up. Which means they will have to accept that every contact with the Jewish state will send their unhinged and unpleasant rank-and-file into paroxysms of indignation.
None of this matters a jot to Israel. They can look after themselves and there are any number of countries keen to buy their life-saving medicines and cutting-edge technology. But it creates the impression that Scotland’s political elite are spiteful, closed-minded, irrational and easily led, a miserable assemblage of provincial, low-information haters. We wouldn’t want anyone getting that idea.
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