The inimitable Mr. McColl

This is cross posted at Richard Millett’s Blog

Councillor Jonathan McColl

My main reason for blogging is to expose the hypocrisy amongst so many of our elected politicians and the so-called intellectuals in this country.

The talks I attend are so vociferously anti-Israel and, initially, I was curious to find out why.

Was it all really because the speakers at these talks felt such an injustice had been done to the Palestinians, when looking back the Palestinians have wasted so many opportunities to create a thriving country?

Then I started to notice interesting slips by some of the speakers.

One such slip was when academic Ghada Karmi spoke at SOAS and called for “the end of the Jewish state in our region”, only to be reprimanded by the Naturei Karta’s Yisroel Dovid Weiss for referring to “Jewish state”, as oppose to “Zionist state”. Karmi duly apologised and went on to say that she had nothing against Jews or Judaism.

Then there was Lord Andrew Phillips of Sudbury who said that “Many Jews may be deeply prejudiced” at a Middle East Monitor event.

On each occasion, apart from Weiss, both audiences remained unmoved. Now imagine the uproar had a member of the BNP called for the end of the Muslim state of Pakistan or had that BNP person claimed that “Many Muslims may be deeply prejudiced”. You get the gist.

Add to these slips another one, this time by Councillor Jonathan McColl, the West Dunbartonshire councillor and main proponent of a total boycott of Israel by his council (see my original piece Not so Bonnie Scotland).

On his “Israeli Goods Boycott” blog page McColl states of the boycott:

“This is not an anti-Semitic act. I don’t care whether you are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Agnostic or any other such label you might want to give someone.”

Fair enough.

But, he continues:

“To quote a Jewish woman from Glasgow who telephoned me on this issue, ‘We are brought up in a culture of ‘poor wee us’, automatically thinking that the world is against us and perhaps we should take stock of that before we draw conclusions about other people’s motivations.'”

So Mr McColl doesn’t like using labels for people, except to label them if they are “Jewish”.

Add to this Councillor Jim Bollan’s exculpation of a self-confessed perpetrator of the massacre of five members of the Fogel family when Bollan said in a recent email exchange:

“Have you any idea what may have motivated this man to commit this crime? Could it have been because he may have seen Palestinian children slaughtered by the IDF?”

And you start to sense a heartlessness in Scottish politics, a heartlessness that was already there when the Scottish government released the Lockerbie Bomber in August 2009.

Are councillors McColl and Bollan really who the voters of West Dunbartonshire Council want to represent them? Can there really be any justification whatsoever for the slashing of baby Hadas Fogel’s throat?

The Scots are generally lovely people but some of the people they are now voting for are not.

Bollan is a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, while McColl is a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party. The Scottish Nationalists are now, sadly, the ruling government in Scotland.

Bollan and McColl are councillors for Leven ward in West Dunbartonshire Council. Maybe there’s something nasty in the Leven air.

Meanwhile, you can discuss their boycott of Israel, and other issues, with them at:

Councillor Jim Bollan  James.Bollan@west-dunbarton.gov.uk or write to 4 Endrick Way, Alexandria, G83 0UR or telephone 01389 756397 and 07803 668766 or

Councillor Jonathan McColl–  or write to c/o Council Offices, Garshake Road, Dumbarton or telephone 01389 737511 or 07939 002886

Alex Salmond is SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister. Write to:
Office of the First Minister, St. Andrew’s House, Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG or 

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