Palestinian supporters protesting outside a Scotland vs. Israel match at the a UEFA Women’s European Qualifiers at Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland on May 31, 2024. Photo: Alex Todd/Sportpix/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

Scottish First Minister John Swinney is facing fierce backlash after nearly 3,000 signatories accused his government’s anti-Israel stance of fueling antisemitism and endangering Jewish communities across Scotland.

Last week, Swinney announced that his government would halt new public contracts with arms companies supplying Israel, saying that “in the face of genocide, there can be no business as usual.”

In response to this latest anti-Israel move, the organization Scotland Against Antisemitism (SAA) sent Swinney a letter urging him to retract his “inflammatory language.”

“For the Scottish government to endorse this modern-day blood libel will not save a single innocent life in Gaza, but it will embolden those who now use the language of genocide to justify the harassment and intimidation of Jews here in Scotland,” the letter reads

The group also urged Swinney to engage with Scotland’s Jewish community and implement concrete measures to protect their safety amid a rising wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes and antisemitism.

“As you are no doubt aware, our small and increasingly vulnerable community is living in an extraordinarily hostile environment, one that has only worsened since Oct. 7,” SAA wrote in the letter, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel in 2023.

According to the group, Jews comprise less than one percent of Scotland’s population, yet they were the victims of roughly 17 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes last year.

“That figure alone should be a matter of national shame,” SAA wrote.

Read our full letter to @scotgov and @ScotGovFM and sign here; https://t.co/J7KsOmaidJ pic.twitter.com/1oMpToxN0U

— Scotland Against Antisemitism (@SAA_scotland) September 4, 2025

Swinney’s announcement came after the Scottish Parliament voted to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly this month, joining a growing number of Western countries supporting such an initiative.

“Scotland stands proudly in solidarity with the people of Gaza in the face of genocide,” Swinney wrote in a post on X after the motion was passed.

I am proud that @ScotParl has overwhelmingly voted to call for the recognition of the State of Palestine.

Scotland stands proudly in solidarity with the people of Gaza in the face of genocide. pic.twitter.com/UyLXpitPWk

— John Swinney (@JohnSwinney) September 3, 2025

The government’s increasingly hostile stance toward Israel has drawn sharp criticism from members of Scotland’s Jewish community.

On Monday, a Scottish government spokesperson confirmed that Swinney met with members of the Jewish community following their request for assurances about their safety in Scotland.

“As the first minister made clear in setting out his statement to Parliament, the Scottish government deeply values our relationship with Scotland’s Jewish community and it is vital that they feel safe and supported,” the statement read. “There can be no place for antisemitism or hatred of any kind in Scotland.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a UK-based charity, has released new research conducted by YouGov which showed that those characterized as embracing “entrenched” antisemitic attitudes in the UK had grown to 21 percent, the highest figure on record, showing a jump from 16 percent in 2024 and 11 percent in 2021.

The poll found that nearly half of Britons (45 percent) said Israel treats Palestinians like the Nazis treated Jews, up from 33 percent last year, and with 60 percent of young adults agreeing.

A striking 20 percent of young voters said that Israel does not have a right to exist as a Jewish state, while 31 percent disagreed. Similarly, 19 percent of British young adults justified Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities.

The data came after CAA earlier this year released a separate report revealing the extent of antisemitism experienced by the Jewish community across the UK.

In the past two years, half of Jews have considered leaving Britain due to rising antisemitism following the Oct. 7 atrocities, a figure that climbs to 67 percent among those aged 18 to 24.

According to the poll, 58 percent of British Jews choose to conceal their Judaism to avoid antisemitism, and 43 percent say they do not feel welcome in the UK.

In Scotland, almost 20 percent of Jews said they would not report an antisemitic hate crime to law enforcement, with almost two-thirds doubting that such acts would be prosecuted.

More than 80 percent of British Jews believe authorities are not doing enough to combat antisemitism. Three-quarters also voiced dissatisfaction with the way police have handled anti-Israel protests.

According to additional data provided by the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, there were 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the UK from January to June of this year. It marks the second-highest total of incidents ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following the first half of 2024 in which 2,019 antisemitic incidents were recorded.

In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, the country’s second worst year for antisemitism and an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.

In one of the latest instances of antisemitism, two Jewish comedians were dropped from a major arts and culture festival in Edinburgh after staff cited “safety concerns” over their pro-Israel views.

Yuval Raphael from Israel with the title “New Day Will Rise” on stage at the second semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in the Arena St. Jakobshalle. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa via Reuters Connect

Spanish Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun has joined Slovenia’s national broadcaster in threatening to withdraw their country’s participation in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) if Israel is not banned because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Urtasun appeared Monday morning on the Spanish news show “La hora de La 1 on TVE” and reminded viewers that in May, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the ESC, to ban Israel from the international competition. Urtasun said on Monday that if Israel participated in the ESC “and we fail to expel it, measures will have to be taken,” as cited by the Spanish daily newspaper La Vanguardia. He said he believes Israel’s participation in the contest cannot be normalized and tolerated.

Urtasun, who is also a spokesperson for Spain’s left-wing alliance Sumar, additionally denied that it is antisemitic to denounce the so-called “genocide” taking place in Gaza and described Israel as a “genocidal government.” He also said he feels pride over Israel’s decision to ban Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz and Minister of Childhood and Youth Sira Rego from entering the Jewish state because of their antisemitic statements and criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the sanctions early Monday against the Spanish politicians because of their “anti-Israel and antisemitic” comments and “support for terrorism and violence against Israelis.” Spain has condemned the move in a released statement. Sanchez is a longtime critic of Israel, and last year called for Israel to be excluded from all international cultural events, including the Eurovision, because of its military campaign targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Spain’s national broadcaster RTVE will ultimately make the final decision regarding Spain’s withdrawal from the ESC.

Meanwhile, the director of Slovenia’s national broadcaster, RTVSLO, has announced that it will likely withdraw from the contest next year if Israel participates. Ksenija Horvat recently said that RTVE has reached out to EBU several times with concerns pertaining to Israel’s participation in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest and next year’s competition.

RTVSLO called for the expulsion of Israel from Eurovision 2025 and Horvat sent a letter to members of the EBU’s executive board that RTVSLO shared online in May about Israel’s participation in next year’s competition.

“We sent some very specific questions and proposals, just like last year,” Horvat said recently. “Last year we were more or less ignored. This year is basically the same. So, we realistically think that we will not be able to go to the Eurovision Song Contest. If we won’t be able to reach an appropriate system of participation, we will not be there.”

Even the winner of last year’s Eurovision, Austrian singer JJ, has said that he wants Israel to be banned from the Eurovision next year. The 70th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in May 2026 at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.

The EBU recently extended its penalty-free withdrawal deadline for broadcasters to mid-December, not long after the EBU’s General Assembly will convene and likely discuss Israel’s participation in next year’s competition.

Ahead of last year’s Eurovision, more than 70 former contestants, as well as public broadcasters around the world, called for the EBU to ban Israel from the competition. When the contest ended, and Israel finished in second place, Spain’s RTVE demanded an audit of the voting system after Israel was a favorite in the popular vote. The director of the competition and EBU’s executive supervisor of the ESC both denied accusations that voting was rigged in any way in favor of Israel.

Pro-Hamas protesters led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) demonstrate outside the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 14, 2024. Photo: Derek French via Reuters Connect

Some college students affiliated with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an anti-Israel organization that has helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, have announced that they are forming a new group, citing dissatisfaction with what they described as JVP’s insufficient efforts to “dismantle Zionism.”

The students announced on social media on Sunday the formation of the Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front, an organization which they claim will take a more adversarial stance toward Zionism on campus. 

“We work to dismantle Zionism in its entirety by confronting Zionist institutions on campus, to struggle for divestment, and to pursue the criminalization of Zionism as a white supremacist weapon of war,” the Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front wrote on Instagram.

 

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A post shared by Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front (AJSF) (@antizionistjewishstudentfront)

The group characterized the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel as a form of legitimate “resistance” and declared the Israeli military response as a “horrific expansion of the Zionist project” and a supposed “genocide.”

“In one month, we also mark two years of the strongest sustained resistance by the might of Palestinian journalists, doctors, men, women, and children, refusing to abandon national liberation and continuously defying vicious onslaught, backed by American dollars,” the group continued. 

The Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front claimed that it adheres to the Thawabit, a Palestinian nationalist framework that includes the so-called “right of return” for millions of Palestinians and their descendants to Israel, claims to Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital, and explicit support for so-called “resistance” against the Jewish state. Palestinian leaders and activists have described the Thawabit as a set of principles aimed at eliminating Israel and establishing a Palestinian state in its place.

Critics of the organization often point out that many JVP chapters do not have a single person of Jewish faith. The organization does not require a Jewish person to found a chapter and has even helped orchestrate anti-Israel demonstrations in front of synagogues.