The past months have seen the emergence of terrifying acts of far-right racism and extremism lashed on our streets, targeting mosques, synagogues, refugee and asylum seeker communities, or anyone who is viewed racially or religiously different from a narrowly defined (white) conception of the human. We stand in solidarity with all the victims of racist hatred, including Jews, and we strongly oppose the relentless attempts to divide Muslims and Jews by conflating criticisms of the State of Israel with antisemitism. At this time, we must stand together raising our voices against the tide of racism and call our respective community leaders to act as allies in defending mosques and synagogues, as well as community centres.
We watch with growing horror the relentless erosion of universal values of democracy and legal accountability and perceive a growing risk of dark genocidal forces coming into power in our midst, as experts sound the alarm bells that current political rhetoric and action are taking the UK into the “foothills of genocide.” We call our colleagues and students to unite against the harmful divisive rhetorics and policies that have privileged one specific type of racism, while silencing human rights defenders and advocates of international humanitarian law and governmental accountability.
We have supported the Scottish government in its decision to acknowledge the ongoing genocide in Gaza and to act on divestment and sanctions in relation to the State of Israel. We have also appealed to our universities to withdraw the divisive and harmful IHRA definition on antisemitism from their EDI policy regulations in our efforts to push back against complicity with genocide and human rights violations being carried out under the pretext of protecting Jews. We are now reiterating our demands from institutions to stand firm against far-right populism and to rehabilitate the damaged structures of EDI, accountability, and free speech by reuniting the protected characteristics of religion and ethnicity of Jews alongside those of Muslims and publicly acknowledging the commitment of our institutions to international law and action against genocide. We are fully convinced that unconditional solidarity between people at risk of genocide and racist violence does not only rest within the purview of democracy and law but also offers a crucial shield of our social cohesion and institutional resilience in times of exacerbating geopolitical tensions and economic instability.
Accordingly, we see that the security of any one threatened community depends upon us jointly responding proactively to threats to all targeted communities. We recognise the strength in joint coalitions of diverse community groups all equally committed, traditionally and politically, to human rights, tolerance, and pluralism. We call on all community organisations to coordinate a united defence of our places of worship and of our members. In this period of far-right violence, it is more important than ever that Jews and Muslims rally to defend Jews and Muslims together!
Ophira Gamliel, Rhys Machold, and Stephen Reicher on behalf of the Scottish Universities Jewish Staff Network