March 20, 2013

(JTA) — A county council in Scotland has expressed its support for boycotting Israel.

Clackmananshire County Council, the smallest local authority in Scotland, passed a motion in which it resolved to “resist, insofar as legislative considerations permit, any action that gives political or economic support to the State of Israel.” 

The motion, passed last week without opposition and with only three abstentions, also compared Israel to apartheid South Africa and hoped that “individual and collective sanctions against the State of Israel will end apartheid and suffering in Palestine.” The move has been condemned by Britain’s Jewish community and pro-Israel groups.

A statement from the Fair Play campaign group — an organization set up in 2006 by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council — criticized the council.

“The idea of Clackmannanshire Council having its own foreign policy is ridiculous. This misguided and offensive motion will have no impact on the real world, a fact acknowledged by the motion itself when it stresses that it will only act ‘insofar as legislative considerations permit.’ We urge the Council to grow up and abandon this biased stunt of a motion,” the statement said.

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