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‘We’re no Nazi book burners’ Scottish council hits back after false reports stir up global Jewish fury

IT'S a story of our times.

Ronnie McColl, main picture, is concerned by the bad publicity West Dunbartonshire Council is receiving over the book controversy, as illustrated by some of the online postings, above  Photograph: Mark Mainz
Ronnie McColl, main picture, is concerned by the bad publicity West Dunbartonshire Council is receiving over the book controversy, as illustrated by some of the online postings, above Photograph: Mark Mainz

An online posting is picked up, spun and distorted. In this case, it’s the image of Scotland that has been trashed across the world without ordinary Scots at home knowing a thing about the affair – and threats of violence have even been made against public figures.

In Israel and America, Scotland is being branded an anti-semitic backwater, a country that bans books by Jewish writers. The phrases “Nazi”and “book-burning” are being thrown at the nation, and vitrolic broadsides are being written by some of the world’s most powerful voices in journalism.

The story began last summer when West Dunbartonshire Council received a Freedom Of Information inquiry seeking to know in what ways the council’s boycott of Israeli goods, introduced in early 2009, would be applied to books in its public libraries. It is believed the request was made by a pro-Israel activist strongly opposed to the council’s stance.

In October, as the legal deadline for meeting this inquiry approached, Richard Aird, a senior officer with the council’s library service, sought guidance by posting a comment on the public library discussion forum LIS-PUBS-LIBS. In his post he stated the council’s boycott of Israeli goods “appears to extend to books written by Israeli authors”.

Aird added: “Whilst we support the principle behind the corporate decision, we are naturally concerned about the message this sends out about how our libraries are stocked and the implications this has.”

Less than a month ago the posting got picked up by the Jewish Chronicle, which ran a news story in its print and online editions headlined “Plan to ban Israeli books in Scotland”. The report claimed the council was bent on removing books by leading Israeli authors such as Amos Oz and David Grossman from its public libraries.

It should be noted the council has not banned any books.

Marcus Dysch, the reporter who filed the story, quoted Arieh Kovler, director of the Fair Play Campaign – a group that fiercely opposes all punitive measures against Israel.

“Banning access to knowledge for political reasons is nothing short of censorship,” Kovler said. “West Dunbartonshire must reverse this policy or their libraries will become an international laughing stock.”

Ron Prosser, who recently bowed out as Israel’s ambassador to Britain, warned that a wave of book burning could erupt as a result of the council’s stance. “A place that boycotts books isn’t far from a place that burns them,” he said.

By May 23, parallels with Nazi book-burning were being drawn by Jeffrey Goldberg, a senior writer with The Atlantic Monthly, one of America’s most prestigious magazines with over 400,000 high-brow subscribers. His online blog that day led with the headline “Meanwhile in Scotland, a hint of Goebbels”.

The same day a Jerusalem-based blogger sounded off on the same subject in a posting titled “A swastika under the SNP’s sporran?”. With a few clicks of her mouse, Daphne Anson said: “The shameful move, of course, invites painful memories of 10 May 1933, a day that lives in infamy as that upon which a Nazi mob in Berlin made a bonfire of some 25,000 works by Jewish authors.”

Last weekend Caroline Glick, a top columnist with the Jerusalem Post, told her readers a dozen towns in Scotland had decided to ban Israeli books from their public libraries. Her rueful conclusion: “Israelis shake their heads and wonder, what did we do to the Scots?”

No-one is shaking their head more about all this than Ronnie McColl, leader of West Dunbartonshire Council. “All our elected members have been getting bombarded with emails from fanatics around the world accusing us of being Nazis and anti-Semitic,” he said. “We haven’t burned or banned any Jewish books.”

His son Jonathan, also a councillor, says that “extremist idiots” threatened him with violence because he has stridently hit back at them on his website and on Twitter. “Their message has been: ‘If you start burning Jewish books, we’ll come up and burn you out of your home’. I’m not really worried for my personal safety but it’s been unpleasant.”

On Friday, the latest edition of the Jewish Chronicle carried another, longer report claiming the council was due further condemnation for recently purchasing a copy of The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic text published in Russia in 1903, which purported to contain a Jewish plot for world domination. It was a politically-motivated smear.

The council maintains the purchase request was made by one of its library members, who is a pro-Israel activist.

The authority is so concerned about the negative publicity it is receiving, and by the amount of hate mail flooding into its chambers, that it has posted a lengthy counterblast online, claiming its boycott of Israeli goods will not include censoring or silencing any Israeli authors.

THE council introduced its boycott on goods “made or grown in Israel” in early 2009 when there was international outrage about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Mainstream books by Israeli authors are unaffected, it maintains, because their works are published in the UK.

The authority issued a further statement yesterday reaffirming its position. “The council unreservedly stands behind this decision and is undaunted by sensationalist coverage and unsavory complaints it has recently attracted,” it read.

But the council’s leader admits he is starting to flag under the flak. “Fielding questions on this matter is taking up a lot of the time of elected councillors and council officials,” McColl said.

Aird did not return our calls.

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