Lawyer fined over ‘racist’ jibe
A JEWISH lawyer has been fined £1,750 and told to take diversity training for calling an anti-Israel campaign group accused of hounding a Jewish businessman “scummy racists”.
Matthew Berlow, a solicitor based in Glasgow, was commenting on a Facebook event organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) to protest against the sale of Dead Sea products in an Aberdeen shopping centre.
“You simply found a soft Jewish target to aim your bile at,” Mr Berlow wrote, also calling them “scummy racists, bullies and cowards”.
The SPSC had organised events protesting against the Glasgow -based Jericho Skin Care stall, owned by Nissan Ayalon, and later did the same in Aberdeen when the vendor moved his outlet there.
Last November, Mr Ayalon told the BBC his treatment was like “a game of chase the Jew”, adding: “We were accused of murdering, slaughter, we were called criminals… baby killers.” Mr Ayalon has since left the UK. Mick Napier, the chair of the SPSC, was convicted of aggravated trespass and failing to follow police orders to
leave the Jericho Skin Care cosmetics store. Jim Watson, an SPSC member, was convicted of ignoring the police. The group hailed the protest as a success, however, because an additional charge of racial aggravation was dismissed.
The Scottish Law Society ordered Mr Berlow to pay the fine and £100 to Dr Karolin Hijazi, a pro-Palestinian campaigner and a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen’s Institute of Dentistry, who complained about his “scummy racists” comment.
Mr Berlow said: “I had never even heard of this woman before the complaint arose, so I suggested that my comments were not directed at her.”
In his defence, Mr Berlow showed the Law Society a 2017 report produced by David Collier, a researcher who documents Jew-hate, which contained examples of SPSC members sharing antisemitic and Holocaust-denying material on social media. He said, however, “The Law Society don’t seem to grasp that I am not calling her [Dr Hijazi] an antisemite and a Holocaust denier.”
Mr Berlow added the training “annoys me” because he was married to a Muslim, “so it’s not like I don’t have a diverse outlook on life… I support a two-state solution, so I’m not exactly a right-wing settler type.” A crowdfunding page has been set up to “mount a strong legal challenge to this decision”.
Mr Berlow also said that, though Mr Ayalon’s company was named after Jericho in the West Bank, he had been selling Dead Sea products from outside the Occupied Territories.