ANGUS Robertson has defended Scottish Government grants to arms firms supplying Israel, saying that they are not "direct funding for the manufacture of weapons".
It comes in the wake of a major new report which concluded that there is a genocide taking place in Gaza.
On Thursday, Amnesty International published a 296-page investigation into the Israeli siege of and assault on Gaza since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. It concluded that the Israeli government “not only foresaw but intended” mass Palestinians deaths and that there was “sufficient” evidence to state that they had breached the UN Genocide Convention.
In the wake of the findings, Amnesty called on the Scottish Government to end its grants to arms firms including BAE Systems, Raytheon Systems, and Leonardo – which manufactures parts for the F-35 fighter jets Israel uses in Gaza.
To continue with the grants – which have totalled around £3 million since 2023 – risked “complicity with the most serious of international humanitarian law violations”, Amnesty International’s Scotland programme director Neil Cowan said.
Asked about the grants to arms firms on Thursday, External Affairs Secretary Robertson defended them – but also told The National that he believed the UK Government should block those same firms from exporting to Israel.
“The concerns about arms exports to Israel are concerns which I raised with the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] when I met with them last week in London,” he said.
“It's the UK that is responsible for arms licensing and exports. I was very keen to make sure that there was an understanding that the Scottish Government does not support the export of weapons to Israel.”
Pressed on why the Scottish Government then seemed to back financially supporting the firms that make those weapons, he said: “No, there is no direct funding for the manufacture of weapons and weapons that are exported. That is my understanding of current arrangements.”
“I think very close attention is paid to whether any public money from the Scottish Government goes into the manufacture of weapons systems that are exported to Israel or not,” he added.
The Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise, through which the grants are administered, have previously said the grants are for research, training, and apprenticeships.
Asked if those apprentices were not being trained to make weapons, Robertson said: “You're making the point that any support is not for the direct manufacture of weapon systems.”
He added: “The Scottish Government has called on the UK Government to ensure that there are no weapon systems, full stop, being exported to Israel at the present time.
“That's not something the Scottish Government has the power to do at the present time.”
“This is a very current issue so no doubt people are looking at all of these issues because the Scottish Government supports the ending of arms exports to Israel at the present time.”
The Amnesty report has piled further pressure on the UK Government to end its arms export to Israel. Labour cancelled just 30 out of 350 in September, but explicitly kept the export of F-35 parts in place.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, singled out the UK – along with the US and Germany – as one of the states which “must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end”, including by stopping all arms exports to the country.
She warned that “states that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide”.
The UK Government did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
A spokesperson for Scottish Enterprise said: “Our support for companies is consistent with Scottish and UK Government policies, and our Human Rights Due Diligence checks are fully compliant with Scottish Government guidance. These checks were used to assess companies we support currently and will be applied to future funding decisions.
“We take our Human Rights Due Diligence checks seriously, review the procedure regularly and update it as guidance evolves. For example, an updated Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ database of companies active in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was recently added to the list of independent resources used to perform our checks.
“We also continue to make it clear to companies, through legally binding contracts, that our funding and support can only be used to deliver agreed projects in Scotland. None of the projects we support involve the manufacture of munitions or weaponry.”
Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israeli government’s foreign affairs ministry, said: “The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies.
“The genocidal massacre on October 7, 2023, was carried out by the Hamas terrorist organisation against Israeli citizens. Since then, Israeli citizens have been subjected to daily attacks from seven different fronts.
“Israel is defending itself against these attacks acting fully in accordance with international law.”
