RUTHFULLY YOURS

The West Dunbartonshire Council led by the loony Scottish National Party has decided to ban books from Israel. The first book on their list should be the Bible, a notorious Zionist tract which claims divine sanction for a Greater Israel. But the Bible will likely remain on the shelves of West Dunbartonshire libraries, while zealous SNP members will keep a watch for books by Amos Oz, who agrees with them on all the essential details.

The silly thing about European boycotts of Israeli books and movies is that it almost always comes down to leftists boycotting other leftists. Imagine the UK boycotting Michael Moore to protest the War in Iraq and American leftists reciprocating with a ban on Ian McEwan. Purging Amos Oz from libraries and Samuel Maoz from theaters does Israel a favor. It also does America and Europe a favor by sparing them from the prolonged leftist diatribes of the cafe crowd. And maybe that’s why directors like Ken Loach and writers like Iain Banks bring down the axe, it spares them the competition. Why import leftist writers and directors to Europe? You might as well ship coal to Newcastle.

Keeping Israeli books off the shelf won’t help the people of West Dunbartonshire, which has the worst unemployment in the UK, with thousands out of work. It might move another one or two of Ian McEwan’s depressing tomes to the register and into someone’s suicide kit, but it won’t create any more jobs. It does however make for a useful distraction. The SNP will try to divert attention from their funding cuts with a round of “Bash the Jews.” Considering the minute number of Jews in Scotland, they have to make do with Israel.

Of course it’s not entirely fair to blame the SNP for all this. The actual idiotic motion came from Councillor Jim Bollan, of the Scottish Socialist Party, formerly of the Communist Party. To clear up any confusion between the two, the Scottish Socialist Party has a red flag with a yellow star, with optional clenched fists on it, and its abbreviation is one Cyrillic letter away from that of the Soviet Union. It’s not clear what the difference between the SSP and the Communist party is, except that it’s easier to get elected to the West Dunbartonshire Council as a Socialist than a Communist, whereupon you are then free to tackle such vital issues as the surplus of Israeli books in community libraries and boycotts of Marks and Spencer for selling Zionist underwear.

According to itself, the Scottish Socialist Party is a “fresh, forward-looking party which dares to be different.” And there is no better way to be fresh, different and forward-looking than by waving the red and yellow flag of a bankrupt ideology that not even the Russians and Chinese want anything to do with anymore. But what doesn’t sell in Russia, China or even Cuba still passes muster in Scotland, where the welfare state has become a way of life and the SNP makes David Sutch’s Official Monster Raving Loony Party seem downright sensible.

Scotland is in the midst of an economic disaster and the SSP and SNP are bent on turning it into an even bigger disaster. The SSP has a bold program of opposing the war, independence and taxing the rich. This distinguishes it from the SNP which also opposes the war, wants independence and a local income tax. But neither the SNP or SSP really want independence. Their own economic policies make Scottish independence all but impossible. Their only real election program is the welfare state, and independence would kill the golden goose that makes it possible. Instead,  they look to the EU to take over where the UK would leave off. But someone still has to foot the bill.

For a party running a country into the ground during an economic crisis, the Scottish National Party spends a peculiar amount of time obsessing over Israel. But then considering the SNP’s dueling Marxist and Fascist roots, that’s hardly surprising. Before Arthur Donaldson headed up the SNP, he was cooling his heels in a cell for his enthusiastic desire to be Scotland’s own Vidkun Quisling. SNP founding member Hugh MacDiarmid championed Scottish fascism before switching to the Communist party. Another SNP founder, Andrew Dewar Gibb, met with Nazi emissaries to prepare for an independent Scotland under German rule.

Today,  the Scottish National Party is pro-independence and pro-EU, an echo of the time when it was pro-independence and pro-Third Reich. Now it’s Pro-Islamic as well. The likes of Osama Saeed and Hamza Yousaf are the SNP’s new defenders of Scottish values. Osama Saeed, who was a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, a supporter of Yemeni Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, was also a Scottish National Party candidate and an adviser to Prime Minister Salmond.

Osama Saeed, named one of Scotland’s Top 100 thinkers and opinion formers, wrote an article for The Guardian championing the return of the Caliphate. “A restored caliphate,” Osama explained, “is entirely compatible with democratically accountable institutions.” It would be just like the EU, except its leader would be called a Caliph, its law would be Sharia and if the US and Britain are really sincere about helping Muslims, they should support the restoration of the Caliphate.

In an astoundingly short time, the Scottish National Party has gone from collaborating with Nazis, to collaborating with Islamists. Its talk of Scottish values has become a farce. SNP candidate Humza Yousaf took his oath of allegiance in the Scottish Parliament in Urdu. Jahangir Hanif became known as the Kalashnikov Councilor over a video of him firing an AK-47 in an armed camp in Pakistan. And the SNP has funneled hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Scottish Islamic Foundation, which has served as a forum for Muslim Brotherhood speakers. The unemployed of West Dunbartonshire face cuts, but there’s always money on hand for the Scottish Islamic Foundation.

The SNP’s obsessive anti-war rhetoric is not Pro-Scotland, it is Pro-Islamist. Salmond’s dirty deal that set the Lockerbie bomber free is more of the same. Salmond defended the release of the murderous terrorist as following the principles of Gandhi, but it is more likely that he was thinking of Gaddafi.  SNP’s European parliamentarians remain obsessed with Israel, while giving Hamas a pass. Salmond’s Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, a good friend of SNP’s first Muslim councilor, Bashir Ahmad, has never missed a chance to blast Israel in support of Muslim terrorists. And at a time when NHS Scotland was facing shortages and cuts, she took the lead in offering free medical aid to Hamas run Gaza.

The Scottish National Party may still wave the saltire, but it might as well replace it with the star and crescent. Muslim immigration has boosted its political fortunes, but the aging Scottish population is being displaced by Pakistani immigrants. As immigration rules funnel more Muslims to Scotland to replace the native population, the Scottish National Party is aligning itself with an Islamist agenda. Mosques are clashing with traditional pubs. Scottish medical workers have been barred from eating at their desks during Ramadan. The Burka is being promoted and Scottish Muslims have been planning to set up an Islamic state in some remote part of Scotland. But they might as well do it in Glasgow.

Scottish leftists have gone mad for Islam and are trading in their national heritage and culture, for a Muslim welfare state.

Daniel Greenfield is a columnist and author, born in Israel and currently living in New York City. He comments on political affairs with a special focus on the War on Terror and the rising threat to Western civilization. He maintains a blog at sultanknish.blogspot.com.