CAMPAIGNERS are calling for an Israeli player to be banned from competing at a World Bowls Tour contest in Livingston next month.
It is understood Israeli national qualifier Shalom Ben Ami is set to compete at the Scottish International Open at the West Lothian Indoor Bowling Club, taking place from November 5 to 7.
Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card (The Red Card Group) and Scottish Sport for Palestine have condemned the decision to invite him to compete and have insisted it must be withdrawn.
More than 1600 people have signed a petition against his country's participation.
According to the World Bowls Tour Facebook page, Ben Ami has been drawn to play Scot Alex Marshall – one of the top 16 WBT ranked players in the tournament.
The campaign groups have argued the Scottish Government must step in to ensure the invitation from WBT is withdrawn under the terms of the Gleneagles Agreement, which states Scotland is obligated to cease sporting ties with organisations and nationals belonging to “any country” with apartheid policies.
The groups also argue Ben Ami’s involvement “flies in the face” of calls by the International Court of Justice for governments and international organisations to take steps to end the “apartheid” regime in Israel through relevant actions.
A ruling from the ICJ earlier this year said that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful.
The court said that Israel's legislation and measures violate the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.
The ICJ mandated Israel to end its occupation, dismantle its settlements, provide full reparations to Palestinian victims and facilitate the return of displaced people.
A spokesperson for the Red Card Group and Scottish Sport for Palestine said: “Organisations such as World BowlsTour and their associates must desist from actions which deliberately encourage participation from individuals representing the apartheid and genocidal entity, whose flag already hangs from the ceiling in the spectators’ area of the West Lothian Indoor Bowling Club in Livingston.
“The Gleneagles Agreement, endorsed unanimously by the leaders of all Commonwealth members in 1977, declared that member states and sports organisations shall ‘combat the evil of apartheid by withholding any form of support for, and by taking every practical step to discourage contact or competition by their nationals with sporting organisations, teams or sportsmen from South Africa or from any other country where sports are organised on the basis of race, colour or ethnic origin’.
“The spirit and letter of this agreement puts an obligation on WBT and their associates to desist from 'contact or competition' with bowling sportsmen, such as Ben Ami, and his representative national bowling federation, by virtue of the apartheid nature of Israel.”
The event is set to showcase three days of “top class bowling” with 32 of the best players from around the world competing for the title won last year by Stewart Anderson.
The campaigning groups added: “Be left in no doubt: to promote a country and a sporting national of that country against its current and ongoing onslaught on humanity, with its genocide of Palestinians, its terrorising of other neighbouring civilian populations and its total disregard for human life, would show nothing but a contemptuous and despicable callousness.
“The Scottish Government must uphold their responsibilities under the Gleneagles Agreement and ensure its integrity is not diminished by the making of an invitation to the national of a state which the ICJ has ruled ‘as enforcing legislation which violates the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid,' to a Scottish sporting event.”
The groups have said they will protest the event if the Scottish Government does not take action.
The Scottish Government has been contacted for comment.
