Last week’s Jewish Telegraph featured an article by Glasgow correspondent Colin Grant about the annual Stand Up to Racism march that takes place in Glasgow every year. This year it took place on Saturday 16 March.

Members of Glasgow Friends of Israel (GFI) and the Confederation of Friends of Israel Scotland (COFIS) have participated in this event since 2017 in order to demonstrate against racism in general and antisemitism in particular.

When GFI was established in 2015, following the Gaza war in late 2014, the main reasons for doing so were to counter the extreme bias against Israel in the media and specifically at the time, the one sided narrative against Israel that had been prevalent after that war. Strange how these things come round again.

GFI was established by individuals who believed that there was a strong requirement to oppose aggressive, virulent and bigoted propaganda which seeks to demonise and isolate Israel. In particular, we were determined to stand with Israelis and Jewish people in Scotland who were experiencing increasing incidents of antisemitism, resulting directly from groups and individuals that falsely claimed Israel is a racist state, an apartheid state and one that is committing acts of genocide on the Palestinians. It was important that this prejudiced and untruthful narrative, which takes liberties with history and is as dishonest as it is pernicious, must be opposed with truth and facts.

And therefore from day one, we were committed to stand up against antisemitism which we do regularly at our peace advocacy stall on Buchanan Street but also at other events. The annual Stand Up To Racism march is one of these.

Glasgow however is a city populated by a significant number of left wing groups, communist groups, anarchist and far right groups and of course a hotch- potch of pro Palestinian groups which are in essence Israel haters rather than supporters of the Palestinian people. These groups have always opposed our participation in the Stand Up To Racism march on the basis that Israel is a racist state, we support Israel and therefore we are racists and racists should not be permitted to participate in an anti racism march.

With the exception of our participation on our first march in 2017, which came as a surprise to these Israel haters and therefore they were unprepared for our presence, they have since then tried to persuade, coerce, pressurise and cajole the organisers to exclude us from this event. But this is a public event and as long as participants are marching in support of anti racism, the organisers have no grounds for exclusion. Also, the Israel-Palestinian issue is a political one and therefore must not and should not have any material impact on who can participate in this march against racism.

And so in 2018, some of these groups decided that they would participate in the march but use violent and strong arm tactics to block us, obstruct us, push us and in general physically abuse us so that we would never return. Also, Police Scotland did not have pre-warning of these tactics and were caught completely by surprise, resulting in their inability to effectively manage the quite horrendous scenes on the streets of Glasgow. This failure by Police Scotland resulted in a formal letter of apology from the police to our organisations.

The following year the police appeared in riot gear and with mounted officers to ensure that the scenes from 2018 were not repeated. The thugs and hooligans were kettled in George Square and the march proceeded peacefully despite the disgraceful chants and shouting from the sidelines.

We all had a break during the Covid years.

In the following years, the pressure on the organisers was increasing, especially as these anti Israel organisations advised that if the ‘racists’ were not excluded, they would not participate in the march and would call on other groups to follow their example. Last year, the organisers decided to use an underhand tactic and insisted, with the help of the police, that we must walk behind the stewards, thus making it look as if we were not officially part of the march and therefore the SUTR committee had excluded us.

But no one was fooled by this ruse.

This year, opponents of our participation once again advised the organisers that they would not participate as they could not possibly march in a procession that included the racist Israeli flag. But as we did not have any intention of flying the Israeli flag, and the organisers were aware of this fact, it was clear that this was nothing but an attempt to force our exclusion.

But the organisers stood firm. Talat Ahmed, convener of SUTR Scotland has publicly said the campaign “cannot enforce pre-emptive bans. This is an unrealisable demand and we have urged those making it to reconsider it. It is in the interests of all to stand united against racism and fascism. ”

And so it was. In her opening remarks at this year’s event, Talat Ahmed addressed ALL participants by greeting them and welcoming everyone to the march.

But all was not as it seemed.

From that minute on, our small group of four were subjected to the most grotesque behaviour by the stewards who were intent on making our life as difficult as possible. One particular steward continuously shouted and screamed ‘you are at the back of the march’ and that ‘you are not part of the main march’. She continuously gesticulated, with others, pointing to where she wanted us to go. To the back and once again, behind the stewards

As I was listening but continued to ignore her rampage, she reminded me of Nazi soldiers shouting ‘Rous, Rous’ at Jews, as they were crammed in cattle wagons being ordered into concentration camps and the gas chambers.

As we observed the crowd, we were appalled by the number of Palestinian flags on show, many being flown by the stewards. It was clear to see that the anti racism march had been hijacked by pro-Palestinian/anti Israel factions and the march which was supposed to be against racism was instead a hate march about Israel.

As the march started, it quickly became clear that the stewards had a pre-arranged and worked out action plan to impede us in every way. These bullies wearing high viz yellow vests showing them to be members of the STUC, UNITE, UNISON, SUTR and others, displayed the most disgraceful behaviour against us. We were continuously pushed, shoved, blocked, obstructed, intimidated, shouted at, sworn at and in general, these stewards behaved in a manner that most respectable people would find abhorrent. In addition to these unsavoury physical tactics, we were called scumbags, filth and murderers

As they were appointed stewards by SUTR, they did this in SUTR’s name. They did this at an event organised by SUTR. They did this at an event to which SUTR welcomed everyone. They did this at an event which was publicly supported by SCoJeC, an organisation that represents the Jews of all communities in Scotland.

As the march proceeded, it was obvious that certain representatives of SUTR had a premeditated plan to collectively oppose, disrupt and bully us on a public march.

But we do plan to participate and support this event next year, regardless of the disgraceful tactics used by the stewards and seemingly approved by SUTR.

But these bullies and hooligans that were on the march representing SUTR will not win.